Southern Railway thieves charge me ?20 penalty fare and lie

I was charged a ?20 penalty fare last year on a Southern Railway train. What
happened was that I arrived at the station, there was a queue at the booking
office with some guy asking about train times oblivious to me standing behind him.
The train that I had to catch comes in 2 minutes early on the platform over the
bridge. I tried to get onto the platform to use a ticket machine and found that
the door was sealed shut so I had to go out of the station, round the back over
the bridge to get on the train.

I was only going two stops in total, one stop before I changed trains and could
get a ticket. I sat down near two ticket collectors (they were the "Revenue
Protection" people). One comes up to me and charges me a ?20 penalty fare. I
explain politely how I was unable to buy a ticket but he doesn't want to know. He
takes all the money that I had which leaves my plans ruined and not enough money
even to get home.

Their own rules state that if you have to wait 3 minutes you can board the train
and buy it then. So they can't even abide by their own rules.

I have witnessed hundreds of people buying tickets on the train with no permits in
their possession. The man told me that they couldn't sell tickets to people on the
train when they were on board. I have also seen a person buy a ticket from two
Revenue Protection employees (not ticket collectors) and nothing was said about
why he didn?t have a ticket or a permit.

Everyone's equal and some are more equal than others- should be the new motto of
Southern Railway.

I send a letter in to the "Independant" appeal service (complete with the scales
of justice on their letterhead) and get a reply seven weeks later (!!) telling me
that my first class letter "arrived" 7 days after I posted it and conveniently
enough is now 2 days beyond the 21 day period so they wont even hear the appeal.
Oh and no correspondence will be entered into. No phone number either.

First class letters either arrive within 2 days or not at all. Do you think
they're being truthful?

So any idea what I do next, who can I appeal to now? Do I take County court action
against them?