Two young women were stopped at the gates of Southampton Central station after they could not show valid rail tickets and told a South Western Railway revenue protection officer their phones were dead and they could not remember account passwords, footage aired by Channel 5 shows.
In the clip, revenue protection officer Spencer asks the women where they are travelling and whether they have bought tickets on their phones. One woman replies that her phone "is broke" and "hasn't charged", while the other says her phone also will not charge. Spencer offers to let the women log into an account on a friend's phone, suggests he can charge their devices and points them to a nearby British Transport Police station for assistance, but the duo refuse and become hostile. "Oh, shut up. How I am meant to remember my passwords?" one of the women tells the officer, who later describes them as rude.
The two travellers then appear to leave the gate area and re-enter the station through another entry point before attempting to board a train to Portsmouth Harbour. An on-board guard identified as Liliana told investigators she had removed the pair after they failed to produce tickets; by the time Spencer reached the platform they had already vanished. "They're not here," he says on camera, adding that staff sometimes chase fare evaders across the station before losing them.
The incident is featured in episode nine of Channel 5's Fare Dodgers: At War With The Law. The episode, previewed by the Daily Mail, follows revenue protection officers conducting patrols, stings and confrontations at stations across the south-east of England. It also shows a separate stop at Ilford in which a passenger is confronted about an alleged £3,160.40 in unpaid fares, and an encounter at Clapham Junction where a university law student is filmed becoming distressed after being caught without a ticket.
Other cases included in the programme show long-term evasion at Harold Wood in east London, where an individual is accused of avoiding about £1,650 in fares over nearly 250 journeys, and a large-scale operation at Vauxhall where 20 officers investigate suspected fraud connected to a discounted Jobcentre Plus fare. Inspectors also tackle tailgating through barriers and the misuse of half-price child tickets during school holidays, and the series follows newly trained recruits on the Weymouth-to-London line, where passengers reportedly hop on and off to avoid inspectors.
Revenue protection teams and rail operators say fare evasion leads to substantial lost income. Industry body the Rail Delivery Group estimates unpaid travel costs amount to between £350 million and £400 million each year. Rail staff and police have countered with targeted enforcement operations, public awareness campaigns and, in some cases, prosecutions.
Channel 5's Fare Dodgers: At War With The Law airs next Monday at 9 p.m., with the Southampton Central encounter among the cases shown as part of the programme's portrayal of routine enforcement work and the challenges faced by staff dealing with abusive or evasive passengers.