Prosecuting passengers for pocket change? Rail ticketing in Britain has become an absolute farce | Jonn Elledge

The transport secretary, Louise Haigh, is right: innocent people should never feel like criminals for merely buying a ticketThere are a number of things that made Northern’s attempts to prosecute Sam Williamson for rail fare evasion seem a bit off. One was that he, er, had a ticket – one that was marked “anytime”. There were, it transpired, some limits on when he could use that ticket – his 16-25 railcard magically transformed that “anytime” ticket into