AN IRATE traveller who refused to show officials his train ticket yelled at and then assaulted a customer service worker at Carlisle railway station.

Ramsay Fraser, 20, denied an allegation of assault, claiming that he had been 'grabbed' by the man involved. But a District Judge rejected his claim, finding the defendant guilty.

A key part of the evidence heard at the city's Rickergate court was bodycam footage which showed the defendant reacting aggressively as station staff calmly attempted to persuade him to show them his ticket.

The defendant was travelling north on a Glasgow bound Avanti West Coast train on August 25 last year but he got off at Carlisle's station because he wanted to switch trains and travel to Edinburgh, the court heard.

Train staff had alerted colleagues at the railway station, asking for British Transport Police to be called because Fraser had no ticket and no money. He was travelling with two puppies.

The video showed him angrily shouting at the customer care worker, who was calmly asking to see the defendant’s ticket. Fraser swore at the man, telling him: “Don’t ****ing bother me.”

He said his phone would not connect to the station’s Wi-Fi.

When Fraser said he had no internet signal, a second worker offered to let him use his phone’s “hotspot” facility to download the ticket he claimed to have.

Fraser ignored this, just walking away.

Repeatedly, Fraser swore and yelled that he was not prepared to miss the train and let his two dogs sleep outside. He said he did not care what the staff thought about what he intended to do and proving he had a ticket.

In his evidence, the customer care worker described Fraser’s manner as “abusive.”

He said: “There were two instances when he punched me in the chest.” At one point he removed his spectacles because he feared Fraser's behaviour would further escalate.

In his evidence, Fraser suggested that the customer care worker had assaulted him but had only switched on his bodycam after this. “He approached me in an aggressive manner,” he said.

Asked why he did not give that account to the police, he said: “I didn’t want to tell the police.” He accepted that he had been physically violent to the worker involved, but added that he did not regard it as an assault.

Finding Fraser guilty, District Judge John Temperley rejected the defendant’s claim that the aggression came first from the victim. The behaviour of the customer care worker, as seen in the video, was “entirely professional and polite.”

The defendant made contact with the victim three times, and while this was not particularly forceful, it was unjustified.

Fraser was verbally abusive and aggressive and his contact with the victim amounted to unlawful force, said the judge.

The judge told the defendant: “It’s an aggravating feature that [the victim] was a member of staff at the train station trying to do their job and, in my view, doing their job properly.

"Anybody travelling on a train has to provide evidence that they have a ticket and you did not.

“But it’s not about whether you had a ticket; it’s your reaction when challenged. Unfortunately, [the victim] comes across this on a regular basis. It happens way too much.”

The judge imposed a 12-month community order, with 16 rehabilitation activity days and a 16 week 7pm to 7am curfew. This partly replaced an earlier sentence for earlier offending for which 67 hours of unpaid work was outstanding.

The defendant, of Adam Road, Woodford Halse, Daventry, must pay £650 prosecution costs.