Help - Son issued with court summons for non payment of train fare - wrong person and wrong address

[Jesuswasacapricorn]

Awake and worried about potential repercussions of this. I'll try and explain it as simply as I can without giving info - all names have been changed to protect the innocent 😀

1. Joe Bloggs - address in the North - date of birth 01.01.2003
2. Joe Bloggs - address in the South - date of birth 01.01.2006

Son (Joe Bloggs 1) gets a court summons at his home address for non payment of a train fare by Reading Courts, travelling on GWR in January. He's never travelled on that train and was at uni in an exam at the time it was issued. The first covering page of the summons has his name and our address in the north.

On the actual court summons itself it has the name of Joe Bloggs 2, address in the south and date of birth as 01.01.2005 and also 01.01. 2006.

I am concerned about where they have got my address from and if it will affect a/ my son's credit rating and b/ his job prospects - he has just got a job today to work in finance.

I'm awake fretting that this will affect his ability to get a mortgage and they'll search him and see this against him. What the hell do we do to sort out this?

We've emailed the revenue person at the train company that's on the summons and son has called the revenue protection where he now has to prove it wasn't him - the guy on the phone called him dude - that's another rage in itself. He has the evidence of being in his final exam.

I'm absolutely fuming that they've broken GDPR by messing up all this information and caused stress when its nothing to do with him. And the original Joe Bloggs won't get his summons.

That's madness and a complete waste of everyone's time.

Surely they need to prove it was you.

The onus should not be on you to prove it wasn't you?

My sister in law had this ages ago

Some debt addressed to her name and address but it wasn't her debt

It said she had ran up the debt while living at an address she'd never lived at (she'd never stepped foot in the area)

She just wrote a letter,followed up with a phone call and heard nothing more

It seems someone with the same name as her,living in the same city had ran it up and they couldn't trace her so had written to everyone with the same name for some reason

@Jesuswasacapricorn it’s very annoying but you need to let your son handle this, otherwise you are going to be stuck in this horrible anxiety. It would annoy/worry me too, but your son isn’t the offender and can prove it, to his new employer as well (he can stick to ‘mistaken identity - luckily I can prove I was in an exam at the time’. Clearly the offender has just made up some details to avoid being found - completely unfair your son has been dragged into it - and up to your son if he wants to push the ‘do better with people’s data’ side of things going forward. Hope he manages to get it sorted quickly.

I think some of these answers are muddling up other experiences

There are times when you, actually you, are sent a summons or a fine incorrectly

There are times, like in the OP when a letter is sent to a different person, at the wrong addresss but you share the same name as the person. That is not you that is being summonsed. Its the other person. You dont have to 'prove' anything because that summons is not you.

My Daughter got a letter in her name at our address informing her that she was £6k in arrears with her mortgage. She had never had a mortgage and was a uni student at the time. Had to clear that one up.

The police called me asking for my daughter as a material witness in a SA case- name given of victim and everything. The person they wanted wax still at school. The school gave them my number. My daughter was 22 at the time.

The lack of attention to detail these days is ridiculous and caused innocent people so much grief.

Good plan, generally it won’t be over until the court date though. GWR aren’t a prosecuting authority so even if they ask whoever has laid the information to the court that an error has been made, the court still need to withdraw the case. Once you’ve submitted everything I’d phone the court the afternoon the day after the hearing to get the results. It’s public record so they should tell you.

Whoever issued the summons... which would be the court... an intention to prosecute? you contact GWR....

[email protected]

So i assume you never got the letter asking your son for a statement of the facts? GWR have to ask this first.

Dependent on this, you get a chance to settle out of court... or in your sons case, explain they've got the wrong person..

My DD made a mistake with her rail card, she'd never used before, she thought the 16-25 meant the duration... it was a bank issued freebie.... , got an interview under caution... i was fucking incensed and wrote to GWR on her behalf, explaining how she was treated, how the "inspector" & his trainee eyed her up and down... they quietly dropped the case but no apology.

These rail companies are cowboys, their powers to prosecute and caution are similar to the Police, based on law made in the Victorian times....

We've received nothing before this. A letter was sent in January to the real Joe Bloggs at the proper address. Nothing before the summons.

Why would you be doing this? He's the person who hasn't committed the offence and can prove he hasn't. He also seems capable and proactive. Your only part in this seems to be that your home address is tied to it. It's tiresome and I hope he is able to resolve it quickly.

Yes, good plan. Then they both know the situation and also know that the other party has been informed.

I would send both letters Signed For and then in a few days print off the confirmation of receipt from the Royal Mail website.

Assume the best, but prepare for the worst. So keep copies of everything in case it is needed at a later date, but I expect it won't be.

As the Court Summons doesn't have your address on it and refers to a person with a different date of birth, it sounds like a massive cock-up by the train company.

Worst case scenario - it goes to court, he attends with his has a cast iron alibi and the judge finds in his favour.

Well that's a wasted day, plus expenses of travel. And there's no guarantee you will get them back if the court (magistrates initially) feels that the person could have avoided court by engaging with the plaintiff earlier.

You need to get on with challenging this BEFORE court....

Its not his credit rating you should be bothered about, this could lead to a criminal conviction if he does nothing.

You don’t need to pay.

It's not him. He can show a bill or passport or something to prove it?
He's nothing to worry about surely. If such a person doesn't a really exist, that's the debt collectors problem, not his.

If your son has had a summons then he needs to respond to the court, within the time specified.

But he hasn't had a summons. He has been posted someone else's summons.

How will it lead to a criminal conviction for OPs son, when the summons isnt to OPs son?

I’ve had loads of experience of this. You must turn up in court and explain to the person before actually goes into the court, the mixup are normally they wipe it. This is not unusual.

It sounds like the court documents are addressed to the correct person (or at least the details he gave which may be fake). This is good. But the covering correspondence has been sent to your son by GWR. I'm a solicitor and we refer to this as invalid service as it's been sent to the wrong address.

I suspect what has happened (from other posters comments) is that the perpetrator Joe Bloggs has not responded to GWR initial correspondence about the fine so they have sent copies of the summons to other possible addresses they have managed to identify in case he has moved.

Your plan to write to GWR and the Court returning the summons or copies (keep a copy yourself as a paper trail) and explain this is has been incorrectly served on the wrong person/address as the person at your address is not the person/address on the summons (explain other differences such as different date of birth, with copy ID) and any evidence that he was elsewhere on the day (record of exam, screenshot of Google map timeline). That last bit isn't strictly necessary as invalid service is really all you need to rely on but it definitely won't hurt. State clearly that since your son is not the person in the summons he will not be attending and that you would appreciate confirmation from the court in this regard. In each letter clearly state that you have sent this correspondence to both GWR and the Court.

Phone the court after a week and repeat as necessary asking them to confirm they have received the correspondence and noted that the incorrect service.

Your son should not respond to the summons itself as that would be engaging with the process.

Check your home insurance for the free legal helpline that almost all include. Mine is 24/7 and was a lifesaver. You'll get to speak to an actual lawyer who will tell you/your son exactly what to do.

The strange bit about this story is that you normally get sent a letter offering you a deal with you know a few quid extra fine on top of it, before it gets to a summons.

Do you think that your son might have ignored these? hence it’s got straight to a court date?

From what I remember, they offer you like “pay the train fare plus a penalty fine of 50 quid “and then they send you a notice of the intended prosecution then they send you the summons.

Fixed penalty notices are issued on the basis of already being guilty until proven innocent. Ridiculously the onus is on the recipient to appeal or prove they are not the person owing the money.

Your son should not respond to the summons itself as that would be engaging with the process.

If there are any costs as a result of refusing to engage, then you could be liable for them. Courts take a dim view of people who waste their time. Especially if they are doing it to "make a point".

He hasn't been summoned.