When Brent Hicken entered Wellesley subway station through one of its sliding side doors, he was suddenly stopped by two enforcement officers and slapped with a maximum $425 fine for fare evasion.

The 27-year-old had a weekly pass on him and was taken aback by the TTC’s handling of what he says was an honest mistake.

Because of the way Wellesley station is laid out, many people try to avoid paying fares by walking through the bus bay area, said the TTC’s Brad Ross.

Hicken, originally from Sarnia, said he has lived in Toronto for about a year and was unfamiliar with the Wellesley station. On Wednesday evening, the two enforcement officers stopped and asked him what he was doing.

“I hand them my (pass), then they want my licence, they take me to this room and they slap me with a $425 fine,” Hicken said. “I’ve never seen this at a station. I know it’s a trap to charge people such a huge fine.”

He has filed a complaint with the TTC and is waiting to hear back from the transit commission.

“This is totally unjust. I could see if I was jumping the fare . . . but not when you’re holding a prepaid card,” he said.

The Toronto Transit Commission’s Ross said he couldn’t speak about specific issues, but confirmed the commission does have fare evasion patrols.

“There’s lots of signage, particularly on Wellesley, that talks about where you cannot enter and is subject to a fine,” he said.

In incidents like this one, “I can’t second-guess an officer’s decision to write a ticket; that is their call. The courts can dismiss the ticket if they see fit.”

“It is something we take very seriously and we do enforce our fares across the system, and that includes looking for people walking in off bus bays or through bus bays like at Wellesley Station.”

Nearly half of the tickets TTC officers issued in 2012, some 3,215, were for fare evasion, an offence that costs the system roughly $20 million annually.

With files from Andrew Nguyen