Six fare dodgers were seen pushing through the barriers at an Elizabeth line railway station in just two minutes by a Conservative councillor waiting for a friend.
David Taylor stood by the ticket barriers at Romford in East London as he filmed young men pushing their way through a wide gate to avoid paying on Wednesday.
The Havering Council councillor wrote in a caption to the video on Facebook that all the fare avoiders were ‘obvious as anything and not bothering to hide their faces’.
He added that his area ‘should not be allowed to be a safe space for criminals’ and called for ‘cameras that auto detect this stuff’ and alert police to someone’s location.
Mr Taylor said he had ‘thought more than twice before sharing, given the ethnicities of those on the video, and the high likelihood of it attracting racists to comment’.
But he insisted it was important not to ‘censor ourselves out of fear’ – and he had witnessed gate jumping from ‘white, black, mixed, Asian… men and women, younger and older’ as well as ‘football fans on the way to West Ham games and commuters’.
In a Facebook post, Mr Taylor wrote: ‘Like a pound-shop Bobby Jenrick, I filmed ticket gate jumpers whilst waiting at Romford station for a friend. Six people in just two minutes, everyone obvious as anything and not bothering to hide their faces.
‘OK, so some people don’t want staff confronting these folk. But, in the age of facial recognition, surely we can have cameras that auto detect this stuff and alert transport police as to someone’s location?
The two men in the centre were among those seen pushing through the barriers at Romford station in East London yesterday. The man on the left correctly tapped in moments later
One of the men seen pushing through the wide gate at the Romford station barriers last night
‘Tackling gate jumping isn’t just about enforcing rules, it’s also about collecting revenue to keep price increases low.
‘Romford cannot and should not be allowed to be a safe space for criminals. If they know our station is a soft touch then they will congregate here, target here, and our residents will suffer for it.’
He added: ‘I thought more than twice before sharing, given the ethnicities of those on the video, and the high likelihood of it attracting racists to comment. However, on balance, we shouldn’t censor ourselves out of fear.
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‘I’ve witnessed gate jumping from all types (except, I think, old ladies). White, black, mixed, Asian… men and women, younger and older. Football fans on the way to West Ham games and commuters.
‘To those of you making this a race thing. Widen your mind a bit. Not everything is about race.’
He also cited a recent report on proposals to cut fare dodging from City Hall Conservative Thomas Turrell, deputy chairman of the London Assembly’s transport committee.
And Mr Turrell told the Daily Mail today: ‘£190million is stolen every year from hard-working Londoners whilst Sadiq Khan does nothing about it.
‘I’m grateful to David Taylor for highlighting my report in response to the horrendous fare dodging at Romford, as well as other stations on the TfL network.
‘Our Mayor and Transport for London leadership are not serious about tackling this issue, whilst cities like New York have been able to cut it in half by making simple changes such as to barriers, like my report suggests.
‘The existence of fare evasion is a political choice on the part of the Mayor, and I know that I and other Londoners are tired of paying for it.’
One of the men seen pushing through the barriers without paying at Romford station last night
A British Transport Police spokesperson said: ‘Fare evasion is not a victimless crime – the cost is passed down to the honest fare-paying members of the travelling public.
‘We are committed to working closely alongside the railway industry to tackle fare evasion and regularly support them with high visibility patrols at known hotspot locations.’
It comes after Robert Jenrick highlighted fare dodging at another London station in May 2025, when he was shadow justice secretary.
The former Conservative leadership contender posted a video on social media in which he confronted people who forced their way through the barriers at Stratford.
He asked one person ‘do you think it’s alright not to pay’ and challenged another to ‘go back through the barrier and pay’. At the top of an escalator he said to one person ‘do you want to go back and pay like everybody else’?
But the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association union accused Mr Jenrick, who has since defected to Reform UK, of ‘trying to score points’ with the clip.
Data from TfL last November revealed more than one in 20 Tube passengers are now failing to pay for their travel.
An estimated 400,000 journeys on a typical weekday are evaded across the network – costing TfL an estimated £200million each year in lost income.
A TfL spokesperson told the Mail: ‘Fare evasion is a criminal offence that undermines investment in safe, clean and reliable public transport.
‘TfL takes fare evasion extremely seriously and has a multi-pronged strategy in place to reduce fare evasion, with a target to halve its level by 2030/31 financial year.
‘Our team of more than 500 authorised officers operates across our entire transport network day and night, checking tickets, penalising fare evaders, and using new technology and intelligence to identify anyone travelling without the correct ticket or payment for their journey.’
TfL also claims the fare evasion rate dropped to 3.5 per cent in 2024/25 from 3.8 per cent in 2023/24. Its most recent data from the third quarter of 2025/26 shows a rate of 3.5 per cent.
Transport bosses have also pointed out that the current TfL fare evasion rate is much lower than many other cities abroad such as New York where the most recent publicly available rate is 10.6 per cent.
The Mail has also contacted the Mayor’s office for comment.
