Penalty Fares notice incurred by my 12 year old DS

[zookeeper]

Hello

I have received a letter telling me that First Great Western issued a Penalty notice becasue my ds aged 12 was without a ticket on his train which has not been paid and so now £40 is owed.

Mr ds tells me he lost his ticket, was caught and given the notice and 'forgot' to mention it to me...

The letter says "whilst it is not your responsibility as the legal parent to make payment, we advise you ...that £40 remains outstanding..and must be forwarded within 14 days to avoid further debt recovery action"

If I don't pay what is likely to happen?

anyone?

They may choose to take you to small claims court.

not your responsibility as the legal parent? then who is responsible? odd wording

As far as I am aware I didn't think they could give a PND to a minor.

I briefly looked up this by Northern rail. It seems to suggest that they don't issue a PND for under eighteens. Although I don't know who the train company was.

I'm pretty certain that even in the police the law was thirteen for a PND (for seatbelts), but even then it was policy not to ticket people that young.

pay it and make him pay some of it back with jobs/selling something. Not all if a first occurrence.

leave it and it will get higher.

If they are acknowledging that you are not responsible presumably they could only enforce against your child? Can't see them doing that. You could do nothing or you could write back saying you have spoken to child about his responsibility and pay the actual fare as he should have.