Originally Posted by
paul4040
The only ones where an offence is recorded, out of court settlements offered but never a prosecution are:
- "Illegitimate" breaking of journey
- Car park penalty charges at stations (Byelaw 14)
Originally Posted by
paul4040
I don't know, I don't have that granular data to hand. But I can tell you that a very large portion of UFNs go unpaid.
There are other issues at play such as false addresses given and so on, but 122 is enough of a sample size to say that in my experience probably around a third were never paid resulting in a prosecution being the next logical step - but the companies involved decided not to take this step.
Having seen your immediately prior post, another question: How many of these are settled out of court?
These charges and car park charges seem to have one thing in common: They lend themselves to a policy of prioritising revenue recovery over criminal convictions. This could (at least in theory) be a reason for them being less keen to actually prosecute the residual recalcitrant rump. (ISTR that the Inland Revenue and HMCE used to have similar policies, although the political landscape has I think changed there.) The required effect of general deterrence might be being achieved by (say) a 99.5% rate of substantial revenue recovery, without the company having to go through the process of criminal prosecution, which for a commercial organisation is often literally a hiding to nothing.