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IT expert forged rail tickets worth £12,000
Emma Rowley14 Aug 2009
A computer expert could be jailed after forging a ticket to commute free to London for more than two years.
IT consultant Jonathan Moore, 27, saved more than £12,000 in fares by faking a three-month ticket for his daily trip from East Sussex to the capital.
His ruse was only spotted when an inspector noticed that his ticket's colour looked wrong during a routine inspection on board a train.
Moore, from Hove, used his computer skills to design the convincing-looking pass on his home PC.
By presenting it to inspectors on his daily journey to the capital he escaped the usual monthly charge of £333 from July 2006 until November last year.
Police found he had forged rail tickets dating back years and discovered the incriminating ticket designs on his computer.
At Brighton magistrates' court Moore admitted fraud, making 74 forged travel tickets and possessing 11 forged tickets.
Magistrates warned him he could be jailed and said sentencing him was beyond their powers.
Moore, who has no previous convictions, was bailed to appear at Lewes crown court later this month.
Dc Rob Cager, who led the British Transport Police investigation, said: "The simple fact is that he abused his skills as an IT consultant to produce forged tickets, effectively allowing him to enjoy free travel on the railways to the tune of more than £12,000.
"When arrested, he was found in possession of forged rail tickets dating back to 2006, while a search of his computer uncovered the designs he had produced for them."
He added: "We will work closely with the rail companies to ensure that those who seek to make financial gain in this way are brought to justice."
The total fares Moore escaped paying add up to £12,472.
Many people living in the Brighton and Hove area commute to work in London and reports of passengers using forged tickets are rare in Sussex.
But fare dodgers are believed to cost the travel industry £210million a year in lost revenue on London commuter routes and £25million on London Underground alone.
Earlier this year former mayor Ken Livingstone, who once led a crusade against fare dodgers, hit the headlines after being let off a £20 penalty for failing to pay a single fare from Paddington to Slough.
Reader views (28)
Can't Afford A Ticket - You are a fool buddy....have you not consider that may be one of the most common reasons that your ticket increases in value each year, because of liars like Moore?
Admittedly, tickets are over priced, but you only have dishonest travellers to thank for that!
I am currently working on the railway part time, and also studying psychology, it has come in rather useful to catch out liars!
- Anon, London, 05/10/2009 14:48
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If only he could share his designs with the rest of us. Train tickets are disgustingly over-priced. So are bus fares. This man was not stealing but avoiding being robbed!
All of the comments about the train companies being the real frauds are frightenly accurate. The number of times I have stood waiting at a station and missed connecting trains as a result of delays or cancellations are uncountable. There is no other service for customers to turn to.
I believe that a solution is to slightly increase taxes, put on more buses, more trains, more often, and let everybody travel on public transport for FREE! Or at least let children, students, pensioners and other people on a low income travel for free, everybody else at a very low fee.
If public transport was paid for with an increase in taxes, not so many people would own cars, pollution would be minimised and there would be a cheap, reliable service for everyone! Well... we could hope!
- Can'T Afford A Ticket, Neath, 25/09/2009 11:45
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Hope he realises the sentences handed out to "Great Train Robbers!"
Just think what will happen when printing tickets at home becomes a everyday occurance!
- Melvyn Windebank, Canvey Island, Essex, 25/09/2009 10:45
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For the information of ian B and anyone else interested a rail ticket is,in law, a valuable security,and therefoe the offence is contrary to the Forgery \act.
- Peter..., high peak, 25/09/2009 10:45
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Ha.Ha. fair play to the man.Two years to beat the system.Only seems alot of money because of the rip off the public fares to travel any way.Whats the fuss?Let him pay it back on his wage no problem.Prison please NO,No,No, theres enough scum out there committing real crimes to fill the cells.
- Allan Clarke, Brasil, 25/09/2009 10:45
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Interesting, at what point does this become a criminal matter? As Andrew Gilligan's ES article pointed out so well rail fares and penalties are civil matters. If it's obtaining goods or services by deception, the rail operators will have their hands full with the counter claim of obtaining money by deception from anyone who has seen the display in the ticket office say the service is running normally only to get on the platform to have delayed then vanishing services. Perhaps the ticket office displays are the ones proffered to show passenger charter compliance.
- Ian B, London, 25/09/2009 10:45
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This season ticket works out at just over 5 pence a mile. We may not want to pay it but it is not high.
London -Brighton round trip is about a 100 miles, five days a week for 13 weeks arrives at this price of 5 pence a mile.
- Daphne, London UK, 25/09/2009 10:45
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A career in politics awaits him
- Jimfred, London UK, 25/09/2009 10:45
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Ha, Ha! He couldn't have been that good a forger if he got caught!
- Paulo Uccello, London, UK, 25/09/2009 10:45
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As he works in IT he'll probably try to get a diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome in order to try adn get off lightly.
- Tim, Brussels, Belgium, 25/09/2009 10:45
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He should come to Australia. We treat forgers well - eg Francis Greenway, forger and architect of Sydney, 1788.
- Richard, Canbera, Australia, 25/09/2009 10:45
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What the man did was to steal £12,000. Because of him and all the other fair-dodgers, the honest amongst us pay higher fares.
I'm astonished that there are so many who think that fare-dodging is a legitimate form of protest. If you think rail fares are too high, travel by bus! Would you call it a fair protest for the opposing view, if I could magic a few quid out of all your pockets and into mine?
- Nigel, London, 25/09/2009 10:45
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At £333 per month surely the Rail Operators could afford better tickets which would be less forgable.
- Jim Allan, Lake District, 25/09/2009 10:45
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well played to him! public transport is far too expensive of late anyway! and jail? to consume more taxpayers money over a fake ticket? if they brought their prices down they might not have so many fare dodgers and instances like this might not happen.
- Simon James, Omagh Northern Ireland, 25/09/2009 10:45
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If the fares weren't so painfully high, there would be little incentive to skip the fare. Still and all, IT people are annoying and antisocial, and many of them smell funny.
- Neil, London, London UK, 25/09/2009 10:45
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Could be jailed? He's a thief and costing other travellers money, charge him.
However Jail is not the answer. Why spend more tax payers money. Extensive community service I think working in his local station should do the trick.
- Anthony, London, 25/09/2009 10:45
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A person, so matured doesn't look good using this. It's a old trick. I used to use this to travel in my school bus when i wasn't even learnt 123-lotus 
- Himanshu, Hacker's Paradise, 25/09/2009 10:45
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As an it engineer let me say this we don not all SMELL funny we are NOT antisocial we WORK very hard and get very little gredit to keep you up and runing and if you can do our training put up with your antisocial behaviour then PLEASE can you do my job as a field engineer who covers london
- Leroy, London, 25/09/2009 10:45
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I agree with Frank. The rail company should employee him to catch the cheats.
- Dom, London, 25/09/2009 10:45
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"The Labour party have done such a fantastic job making sure that the rail system is reliable and affordable, this kind of fraud is truly disgusting.
- Keith Price, Luton"
Great to see irony isnt dead !
- Chris, Tonbridge,England, 25/09/2009 10:45
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Quite right Keith - a paltry 333 quid a month to get to work and back. Gordon has made our lives so much better and Blair's life style proves that being Labour pays off. Hoooooray for socialism!
- Never Eat Tuna Again, London, 25/09/2009 10:45
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Neil, It occurs to me that if it wasn't for the IT people you denigrate you wouldn't have a computer or the internet.
We do a job that is far harder than it appears to the ignorant. If you think we're anti-social then perhaps it is simply that the IT people of your acquaintance simply cannot be bothered to expend the mental effort required to decend to your purile level.
- Tobin, Newbury, 25/09/2009 10:45
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If fare dodgers are costing travel industry GBP210million a year then they would be better off employing him to catch the cheats. Deduct the fine from his yearly salary. He would be able to help the travel industry to spot the fakes and improve the system thus saving millions for the industry.
- Frank, Copenhagen, Denmark, 25/09/2009 10:45
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It's ironic as they have been faking a reliable train service for years.
- Hansel, London, 25/09/2009 10:45
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It's a train passenter's fight back!!
- Jon, london, 25/09/2009 10:45
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Good for them, rail fees are a disgrace never mind the fact that trains are mostly over crowded, dirty and smelly.
Suggest he sells the software he used but then us poor rail users who pay for our 3rd class service will just end up paying more because so many do not bother paying now.
- Mike, London England and once GREAT Britain, 25/09/2009 10:45
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The Labour party have done such a fantastic job making sure that the rail system is reliable and affordable, this kind of fraud is truly disgusting.
- Keith Price, Luton, 25/09/2009 10:45
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It's instances of this nature (and there must be lots of them) that is the real cause of train fares going up! People forging tickets, and dodging fares whilst the rest of us pay our way is unfair... railway companies have cut staff (including ticket inspectors) so there is more opportunity to "get away with it", and as people do - thus the fares go up in a vicious circle!
- Jim, Essex, 25/09/2009 10:45
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