Tens of thousands of criminal prosecutions for bus fare evasion could be invalid after Transport for London misled defendants about how they could defend themselves in court.
The transport authority, led by the Mayor, prosecutes thousands of people each year over fare dodging, with 450 inspectors across the capital dedicated to catching offenders.
In 2018, it published a “frequently asked questions” document online stating that all fare evasion offences are “strict liability” — a legal term meaning that a suspected offender’s intention at the time is irrelevant and they “may be guilty simply by the fact you did not have a valid ticket”.
But TfL has now conceded that there is a statutory defence available to bus passengers accused of fare evasion — that they might have had a “reasonable excuse” for not having a ticket.
TfL brought 46,179 successful prosecutions for bus fare evasion between 2018 and 2023, ending in more than £8 million in court-ordered fines.
Many of the prosecutions were brought through the single justice procedure, a controversial fast-track court process where defendants do not typically have legal representation and magistrates hand out convictions in private without a court hearing.
“If someone accused of committing a crime like this is told they cannot put forward a valid defence for doing it, they will naturally plead guilty,” said Penelope Gibbs, the director of charity Transform Justice. “The convictions of every single person given the wrong information are unreliable since they may have had a good reason for not having the right bus ticket. This is a major miscarriage of justice.”
The news comes a few weeks after the Standard revealed that rail companies have spent years unlawfully prosecuting passengers in the single justice procedure. The chief magistrate, Paul Goldspring, is set to decide later this week whether to cancel at least 75,000 criminal convictions.
The Standard’s long-running investigation into the single justice procedure has exposed unjust prosecutions brought against frail pensioners and the mentally unwell over unpaid car and TV licence bills, as well as unlawful cases brought against children, parents and businesses.
TfL deleted the online document containing the “strict liability” claim at the end of June, when its existence was highlighted by the Standard.
The document appears to have been edited five times between 2018 and 2021, with the “strict liability” claim remaining in place.
TfL said physical copies of the FAQ document were sent directly to defendants with the “strict liability” claim between 2017 and April 2019, when more than 30,000 people were convicted of bus fare evasion after either pleading guilty or not entering a plea.
A different document was sent to defendants from April 2019 onwards, but the old version remained online and was the top search result for “TfL prosecutions” on Google.
TfL said it had previously tried and failed to remove the document online, and it publishes other updated advice for defendants on its website, including help finding a lawyer or consulting with the Citizens Advice Bureau. It added that the single justice procedure “is an approved process for our fare evasion byelaw offences, and enables defendants to submit to magistrates any information or mitigating circumstances they would like in relation to their case.”
