Prolific fare dodger ‘tried to avoid paying for train' on way to court

Yahoo

03-05-2025

One of Britain's biggest fare dodgers, who owes £30,000 in unpaid fines for train fare evasion, was allegedly stopped without a ticket on the morning of his court appearance.
Charles Brohiri has been caught without a train ticket at almost every station across the Thameslink, Southern and Greater Northern network.
He appeared at Westminster Magistrates' court on Wednesday afternoon to be sentenced for 36 counts of travelling on a railway without paying, having previously been convicted in absentia.
Despite promoting himself on social media as the rapper Rvre Dean, the 28-year-old told the court he was homeless, owned no mobile phone and could only access the internet through public libraries.
Gareth Ring, prosecutor for Thameslink, told magistrates: 'At 8.16 this morning, Mr Brohiri was stopped on one of our trains without a valid ticket.'
Mr Ring handed the magistrates a dossier which he said contained details of 180 previous instances where Brohiri had been caught without a ticket at Thameslink stations or aboard its trains.
The prosecutor added that the 28-year-old 'owes the court an awful lot of money'.
An arrest warrant against Brohiri for over £30,015 in unpaid court fines was issued in February.
This is three times higher than the previous record for a rail fare evasion fine, which was issued for £10,000 last year in southern Essex against an unnamed defendant.
Although rail offenders have voluntarily paid back higher sums as an alternative to prosecution, it is unusual for fines of more than a few hundred pounds to be issued for fare evasion.
Greater Anglia announced in 2019 that it had secured the imprisonment of Stefan Jaworski, then 37, of Rayleigh in Essex after he was caught evading train fares on some 55 occasions.
Although the Regulation of Railways Act 1889 allows offenders to be imprisoned for a 'second or subsequent offence' of fare evasion, the power – which allows sentences of up to three months – is very rarely used.
The huge number of charges and convictions Brohiri has racked up sheds fresh light on the controversial private prosecution system for fare evasion.
Criminal cases brought against train passengers over fare discrepancies as small as £1.90 triggered a public scandal last year.
It ended with 75,000 wrongfully-brought fare evasion cases being nullified by the Chief Magistrate amid public concern that train company bosses were misusing a law dating back to Queen Victoria's reign as an extra revenue stream.
All of those fines are now being repaid to wrongly-convicted defendants. Meanwhile, cases such as Brohiri's continue progressing through the courts.
Judges heard that he was arrested by police and brought to court on March 30 before he was bailed to reappear for sentencing.
The court heard that since then, he had been spoken to 13 times without a valid ticket.
Julie Mills, presiding, was told that Brohiri 'clearly disregarded whatever happened in March' and continued to board Thamselink trains.
Brohiri, who had repeatedly said to Thameslink over the past year that he lived at an address on Cloverland, Hatfield, told the court that he has been homeless since 2019.
An online profile on a music website states: 'Caleb Lewis Brohiri, better known by his stage name, Rvre Dean, hails from Croydon, south London.'
According to the L-Hit website, the would-be rapper recorded a single in 2019, but the profile added: 'Before the single's release however, trials and tribulations surfaced which left a big mark on Dean since then.'
When asked how he supported himself without a job, Brohiri claimed to have been living 'a bit crazy' of a lifestyle, saying: 'Sometimes people give me money, or I go charities, I go a few places and whatnot and I just go there to get food… like Pret and these places, I just go there.'
In court, he was wearing a black long-sleeved shirt, plain black trousers, clean black Puma trainers with white detailing and a black hat.
Mr Ring asked him: 'Mr Brohiri, you're clearly well-presented appearance-wise. Did the charity give you help here?'
He replied: 'Nah, these are, like, some things I had.'
Brohiri's sentencing has been adjourned to August 20, pending probation reports.
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