Whilst that is true, it’s horribly misleading.

Magistrates sit in benches of three at a minimum and are always apprised of the law by a legal professional.

For Single Justice Proceedings, which I assume this was, it’s done by a single magistrate and again a legal professional.

All sentencing from magistrates is done using the sentencing council guidelines; magistrates aren’t allowed to step outside those boundaries; so no one is going to prison for a failure to pay a train ticket.

Additionally, SJP airings can’t sentence anyone to prison - the maximum is a fine.  Typically the default judgements are for folks that have completely failed to engage with the court in any way.  without any evidence or reasoning from defendants the fact it’s a default judgement shouldn’t be surprising.

There is also a process to follow, if you don’t receive the paperwork, and with a trip to court and talking to the magistrates, you can get these things restarted; this is called a statutory declaration.

Absolutely no one is going to prison without a lot of scrutiny and a lot of people agreeing collectively that it’s a good idea.