Inside the crackdown on brazen Tube fare dodgers

Tackling knives, drugs and drunks, Rebecca Whittaker joins the British Transport Police on the front line against evaders

- Rebecca Whittaker

In a desperate attempt to avoid the uniformed police guarding the exit to the Tube station, a young man without a ticket sprints back down the platform steps.

But before he can jump back onto the train, officers circle him and have him restrained against a wall within minutes. A search of his bag reveals he is carrying a lockable knife, and he is swiftly arrested on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon and put in handcuffs.

The weapon is placed in an evidence bag, and he is marched through the station and into a waiting police car to be charged and remanded to appear at court the next day. The knife looks small, but officers insist it could do serious damage, and they stress they do not know the man’s intentions for travelling with the weapon.

It is just one example of more than 480 instances where people carrying a bladed article, such as a knife, have been stopped by British Transport Police (BTP) in the past year. The Independent witnessed several fare-dodging incidents while on an operation with the BTP, from Stratford station in east London to Ilford on the Elizabeth line, as part of their crackdown on offenders.

The latest figures show almost one in 20 Tube passengers are dodging fares – at a cost to Transport for London (TfL) of £130m – during a surge in violence against staff who try to stop them.

Ilford is one of many stations in the capital that has witnessed violence towards staff, with workers telling how they have been hit, spat at and subjected to racial abuse – all in the line of work.