A FARE dodger who goaded a rail company with taunts of "catch me if you can" has been ordered to pay a hefty fine.

Richard Ruddy, 25, branded paying customers "muppets" and ridiculed South West Trains on Twitter as he avoided buying £4.40 tickets several times over the course of a year.

But his bragging eventually got him caught, and now he must pay back £48.10 he swindled, plus a £1,225 fine.

Salisbury Magistrates Court heard on Friday that a Twitter expert from the rail company had stumbled across the first of Ruddy's tweets, from January 2016, before finding more posts detailing his exploits.

On February 17, Ruddy tweeted "Another £4.40 saved thanks @SW_Trains" later adding "catch me if you can".

On February 20 he tweeted a photo of himself, saying "Which first class am I in @SW_Trains coach one or coach 4 #comegetme #noticket".

And the next day he posted: "When the ticket man is scoffing a cream cake on carriage 1 if you sit in carriage 4 your [sic] home and dry."

He admitted having dodged fares on 12 trips between Branksome and Christchurch, at a total cost of £48.10.

Mitigating, Paul Jones said Ruddy used the train to go to work and "could not believe that the tickets were not checked".

Magistrate Simon Browning said it was the worst such case he had experienced.

"You were goading the company on Twitter, and what makes it worse is that you were mocking the staff and putting their photos on Twitter without their permission," he said.

Ruddy, of Bournemouth Road, Poole, was ordered to complete 120 hours of unpaid work.

South West Trains said it took a "firm but fair" approach to the crime.

A spokesman said: "Every year, passengers are deprived of millions of pounds worth of potential improvements to their train services, as a direct result of deliberate fare evasion."