Every year, public transport in the Federal Republic of Germany loses around three hundred million euros, simply because many passengers see no need to pay their fare. A significant share of that loss falls on the country’s capital, Berlin — the sheer number of residents in the country’s main city, combined with a heavy flow of tourists, sharply raises the share of fare dodgers within Germany’s overall passenger traffic. To combat this problem, there are special people dressed in black known as ticket inspectors. (Why always black, one might wonder?) On rare occasions they are polite. Most of the time, though, they have little patience for sentiment. As the fare-evasion problem grows, so does the importance of the ticket inspector’s role — and from there, the laws of social psychology take over, governed by dominance and submission between different groups within the population. Experiencing that kind of class dynamic in a personal encounter is not a pleasant thing. And that is exactly the experience our client went through — one that, without professional legal help, could have ended very badly for a fare-dodging passenger.
Riding on a Pill
Sergey Gill had only stopped being a “Russian German” about two years earlier. Once he received his German passport, he dropped the geographic qualifier along with his Russian one. Now he was simply German — albeit with a fairly modest command of the German language. Despite that shortcoming, Sergey had managed to find a job that required little talking, even if only part-time — a man doing his part for society. His linguistic weakness was not his only challenge. Years of hard physical labor in Russia had left Sergey with a herniated disc and a chronic pinched sciatic nerve. The pain was bad enough to make him climb the walls — and it was nearly constant. Physiotherapy brought temporary relief, but things always went back to how they were. Sergey declined surgery, hoping to manage the condition with conservative treatment, though without much success so far. And in order to keep living and working at all, Sergey took strong painkillers.
Those pills had forced Sergey to give up the pleasure of driving. The medication had a side effect beyond its direct pain relief: it caused drowsiness and slowed reactions. As a result, while taking it, Sergey was barred from any work or everyday activity involving a heightened risk. He had to learn his way around the subway instead — fortunately for him, there was a direct line. On one mild winter day, Sergey left work and felt the familiar, seemingly unbearable pain return. He went back home, took two pills, and slowly made his way through the drizzle toward the subway station.
“Tickets, Please!”
Soaked through like the hare in the famous Agniya Barto poem, Sergey made his way down with some difficulty. But the pain was easing, and that was a relief. He boarded the train. The doors flashed their red lights one last time and the train rattled off along the tracks, carrying passengers from point A to point B. Sergey was barely a minute away from his own point B when the rain beat against the windows and the Spree drifted by indifferently below — and a bearded, athletic-looking man approached and asked to see his ticket. Sergey looked at the man for a few seconds and suddenly understood everything. He had no ticket. He had not bought one.
In his broken German, Sergey began explaining about the pills he took, that he had forgotten to buy a ticket, that he would buy one right now, and that there was no need for a fine — he was barely making ends meet as it was. The inspector was unmoved, neither by the story nor by the level of German Sergey had just demonstrated. The train pulled into the final station. Sergey had, in a sense, arrived — yet he was still, in another sense, technically obligated to remain in transit. The inspector demanded a fine. Sergey asked to go to the ticket machine. When Sergey realized the man in front of him simply wasn’t getting it, he took a few steps toward the red ticket machine. The guard’s reaction was instant. He grabbed Sergey by the arms and began shaking him. Sergey switched to Russian and, with a battle cry, shoved the inspector away, telling him — in words we won’t repeat here — to let go. The bearded man may have understood a bit of Russian and taken offense at the word, or perhaps he simply didn’t like any of it, but either way, he landed three blows to Sergey’s face. Three well-placed right hooks: to the eyebrow, the eye, and the jaw. Sergey forgot all about his back pain. He lay on the platform, blood streaming from his battered face. That is how the police found him, and they took him from the scene.
On the Threshold of Prison
After giving a statement to the police, Sergey went to the hospital, where he was medically examined for his injuries. He turned out to have a cut, split eyebrow and lower eyelid, along with bruising. Once home, Sergey asked his family to photograph his battered face. It was clear to him that he and his attacker were in entirely different weight classes, and he decided to fight this in court. The day after the incident, Sergey came to our law firm. After hearing him out and explaining how his situation might unfold, we signed an agreement to represent his interests before the police, the prosecutor’s office, and the court. That same day, our lawyer requested Sergey’s case file from the police. The file showed that Sergey had been detained for fare evasion and had resisted, in the form of an active act, by shoving the inspector. The same documents contained a statement from the inspector, requesting that our client be held liable for attempted bodily harm under §§223, 22 of the German Criminal Code. According to the inspector’s statement, Sergey had pushed him toward the tracks, which could have caused his death or serious injury. This was a criminal offense carrying a maximum sentence of up to five years’ imprisonment. Next to that, the case opened against Sergey under §265a StGB — fare evasion — seemed like a trivial matter.
The Lawyer’s Work: A Counter-Complaint Against the Inspector
First, our lawyer filed a counter-complaint with the police against the inspector who had actually caused Sergey’s injuries. German law allows a witness to an offense to detain the offender at the scene until the police arrive — but only if the offender or suspect has not disclosed their identifying information. Once the suspect’s identity has been established, no one has the right to detain them any further. Doing so anyway can amount to unlawful detention. Detention involves restraining someone, preventing them from moving away — it does not extend to beating them. Neither the inspector’s account nor Sergey’s suggested that there had been any attempt whatsoever to simply verify his identity. The inspector’s conduct clearly amounted to an abuse of his authority.
After filing the complaint with the police, our firm’s lawyer pursued a two-track strategy: discontinuing the criminal case on every count against Sergey, while simultaneously gathering evidence to hold the inspector criminally liable. Working together with the police, footage from several security cameras installed on the platform of one of the Berlin subway’s terminal stations was reviewed. The footage gave a clear picture: the push the inspector had described in his statement as attempted bodily harm had, in fact, been minor and incapable of causing a fall onto the tracks. And the actions preceding the physical hold could not reasonably be identified as an attempt to flee the scene. The direction Sergey was moving in made clear he was trying to reach the ticket machine, located in the opposite direction from the exit.
Outcome: Case Closed, a Counter-Charge in the Works
Our lawyer also filed a petition with the public prosecutor’s office to discontinue the case opened against our client for fare evasion, under §170(2) StPO — for lack of sufficient grounds. The petition cited the absence of intent to commit the offense and the circumstances that had led to it: a side effect of the medication Sergey took under a doctor’s prescription, which caused slowed reactions and drowsiness. The evidence gathered by our firm’s lawyer proved sufficient to have every charge against Sergey dropped and both criminal cases discontinued — cases that, had Sergey not sought help from our firm, could very well have landed him in the dock. And the evidence our lawyer gathered will more than suffice to see the offender — the inspector — face his own deserved punishment. Incidentally, a trial date has already been set, and our client has been invited to testify as a witness. To be continued.
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