Ticket inspectors stole cash fares in card scam

Two married ticket inspectors have admitted using stolen credit cards to pocket thousands of pounds in fares.

Alan Selby, 39, and wife Leanne, 22, kept a bin bag full of hundreds of rail tickets printed off in advance and sold them onto unwitting customers paying in cash. They were found with a stash of stolen credit and debit cards and a portable ticket machine.

The pair used the cards to buy tickets for common journeys in advance using the PDA machine, of the sort worn around inspectors' necks.

When customers asked to buy one of the tickets with cash, the Selbys would sell them ones they had already purchased. They stole more than £4,000 on the Liverpool Street to Stansted Airport line before a passenger raised the alarm after Alan Selby sold him a ticket dated seven months earlier. The pair, who also took money from commuters who had to pay a penalty fare, pleaded guilty at Southwark crown court and will be sentenced later.

The Selbys, of Waltham Cross, Herts, who were employed by One Railway, now National Express East Anglia, admitted conspiracy to defraud between January and October 2006.

Alan Selby has also pleaded guilty to theft, four counts of transferring criminal property and two of handling stolen goods. Leanne Selby also pleaded guilty to the same two counts of handling stolen goods and one of transferring criminal property.

Their former colleague Paul Huckle, 58, of Hoddesdon, Herts, was cleared of conspiracy to defraud.