Connex retreats over £50 'fines'

London's busiest rail commuter company has been forced into a retreat over plans to slap a £50 "fine" on passengers who do not have a ticket, it was revealed today.

Connex intends to scrap the existing £10 penalty fare scheme in the New Year and instead concentrate on prosecuting those travelling without a ticket.

First-time offenders would be given a "yellow card" and have their names and addresses taken. They would be warned that if it happened again they would face automatic prosecution.

With the first warning, Connex was planning to send out letters requesting the fare plus a £50 "administration fee" whatever the reason for the ticketless travel.

However, the company dropped the plan last night on learning the Evening Standard was to publish details of it.

The company estimates it is losing £30million a year due to ticketless travel. The "fee" angered both passengers and the rail watchdog which says the scheme might even have been against the law.

Connex - which on Friday admitted-that during the most recent fourweek period just 42 per cent of its Kent Coast trains into London ran on time - says that up to 9,000 passengers a day deliberately try to avoid paying the fare.

Anyone caught a second time will still face automatic prosecution.

The ticket "blitz", however, has now had to be postponed for three months, because Connex has realised it has 40 stations where passengers cannot buy a ticket because they are not staffed all the time and are not equipped with automatic machines.

That would leave Connex open to a successful legal challenge from anyone caught without a ticket on the grounds that they were not able to buy a ticket in the first place.

The company is having to fit ticket machines at the stations or make sure the ticket offices are open before it can launch its campaign. A spokeswoman confirmed the £50 "administration fee" was being considered for when the scheme starts.

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