I was very troubled by your article about the Chirk pair who were “fined for dodging train fare” .

The only details of the offence you gave told us “ they were found guilty... of boarding a train in Chirk... this year without a valid ticket entitling them to travel”.

So far as I am aware, unless they have purchased advance tickets or hold season tickets, everyone travelling by train from Chirk, including myself not infrequently, will have boarded the train without a ticket because tickets are not on sale at Chirk Station.

The honest traveller will then buy a ticket from the on-train guard who visits new boarders with a request either to show a valid ticket or else to purchase one from them on the train, for which event they carry a ticket machine and a card machine, and a purse for change if needed by a cash payment.

If this system has recently changed please provide us honest travellers with details; otherwise please provide full details of what this unfortunate pair did to commit a criminal offence for which they had fines of £220 each plus costs, compensation, and victim surcharge totalling £139.30 each, and, perhaps worst of all, criminal records.

Clive Jones,

Glyn Morlas