Richard M Willis wrote:
Why does routine payment of a PF constitute evidence for prosecution ?
There's no law against deliberately paying a PF and doing so every journey.

Indeed, you might decide that you usually get a seat in standard class,
therfore have a standard ticket. Then one day there are no seats
available, so you sit in first class and penalty-upgrade on train, as
over the year it's cheaper than a first season, as you dont need it
very often, but dont know in advance when you do.

To constitute evidence, they'd have to observer the persun paying a
PF "every so often", and then having covert cameras (with NO RPIs checking
tickets), to prove that the persun was attempting to pay ONLY WHEN
CHALLENGED.

If there is no one to buy the ticket (at whatever fare) from on the
train, or your end station, what should you do?

I had a very confused woman in the ticket office at Reading station
when I attempted to buy a CDR from Twyford to Reading, with a permit to
travel (the barriers were open). She couldn't understand why I wanted
to buy the ticket (ignoring honesty, I'd already paid £2 on the PTT,
and I'd have to get a CDS on the way back, whcih is only 10p less. Had
a similar incident going into Ealing Broadway too.

Since then I've never put more than the difference between a single and
return ticket into a PTT machine, in case the station I get to can't
deal. The PTT wouldn't be valid on the return trip (2 hours)