Travel card fraudster handed a one-way ticket to prison

Didier Paulet’s dishonesty was discovered after he fled from Leeds Rail Station when transport police tried to arrest him last year.

He jumped a perimeter fence but was caught hiding in some undergrowth nearby, Alun Jones prosecuting told Leeds Crown Court yesterday.

He was found to have a stolen mobile phone on him and a forged travel pass and, when his home was searched, reels of blank bus tickets and 73 ticket wallets were discovered.

They also found a template for creating bus tickets and on his computer screen was a media print software programme displaying a bus ticket to print on to the blank reel.

Mr Jones told the court if all 73 wallets had been used for weekly travel tickets the value would have amounted to more than £1,300.

Paulet, 27 of Wortley Heights, Leeds, denied using false passes but was convicted by a jury in October of possessing articles for use in fraud, two of making articles for use in fraud, and theft of the phone he said he found on a train.

Michael Jowett, for Paulet, said after a troubled upbringing in the Ivory Coast he was trying to improve himself by going to college but not being allowed to earn because of his status needed the tickets for travelling there.

Judge James Spencer QC told Paulet there had to be a jail term. “You set up your own printing system so you could print tickets to defraud the rail network,” he said.