In the absence of the British Midland forum (RIP) I figured this might would be the best place to ask...

Just got on my train home tonight and the guard declared over the PA that those people with super off peak tickets would be liable to a penalty fare.

My understanding of the penalty fare structure was that so long as you had a ticket valid for that day, you could only be charged the standard fare.

He claimed it was a reaction to abuse of oyster cards on the barriers - I asked him if this was an ATOC policy/why it hadn't been published/was he right.

His response was they wouldn't fine people "for a couple of weeks" but I think it's BS - I assume an operator can't arbitrarily override the penalty fare protocol, can they?