I’m a big fan of train travel as well as using the services myself every week. When reliable and affordable, trains can be a good choice for many journeys. That was one reason why I was pleased we won the battle last year to keep our rural local ticket offices open.
This week sees the start of the Great British Rail Sale with over a million discounted tickets up for grabs for journeys taking place between 30 January and 15 March 2024. Purchases need to be made before 29 January so don’t delay, buy today!
At my Pulborough ‘In Conversation’ event last week, with emotions running high over the scandal of sub-Postmaster prosecutions, I was asked if I thought the like of it ‘could it ever happen again’?
Sad to say, I do believe that it is quite possible there are similar injustices happening right now.
An average of about 3,500 people every month are prosecuted behind closed doors for not paying the BBC licence fee, according to the most recent Ministry of Justice figures.
Last year the BBC spent £136 million collecting its licence fee with enforcement contracted to the private outsourcing company Capita. They employ an army of more than 1,000 people to enforce licence fee payment, including door-to-door enforcement officers and solicitors to prosecute cases.
Licence fee evasion cases are prosecuted by the BBC’s TV Licensing arm. Last week, Lord Macdonald, a former director of public prosecutions, said they should instead be dealt with by the independent Crown Prosecution Service. He drew comparisons to the Horizon scandal, in which Post Office investigators gathered the evidence for their own prosecutions. And the campaign group Silver Voices, which acts on issues particularly affecting the over-60s, said prosecuting evaders behind closed doors was “draconian”. “The ‘little person’ doesn’t have much of a say on what is happening to them. As the Post Office showed, injustices can occur.”
