When Jean Salt, a retired piano teacher, fell ill last summer, she got behind on paying her BBC television licence. Salt, 72, spent several months in and out of hospital and was diagnosed with a middle ear infection and labyrinthitis. Fainting and vomiting, she missed her online payments.
She then received a warning letter from Capita (via BBC), which manages BBC TV Licensing on behalf of the BBC, and was prosecuted — despite informing enforcement officers that she was unwell. In January she was convicted in her absence and fined £604, including a £44 victim surcharge.
It is not just pensioners who are threatened by enforcement officers (sales) and then dragged in front of magistrates to be fined for non-payment of the annual £159 fee. In 2020, 52,376 people were convicted of TV licence evasion — although that figure was much lower than usual due to the pandemic. About three quarters of them were women. Licence fee evasion was the most common offence for which women were convicted in 2019, according to the Ministry of Justice, accounting for 30 per cent of all female convictions in England and Wales. Those convicted face fines of up to £1,000.
Like the majority of those women, Salt had decided not to defend her case in court. She needs a wheelchair to leave the house. Instead, she is currently paying off the fine out of her pension credit, which is “quite painful” because “money is very tight”. Salt, who lives alone in Undy in southeast Wales, is “very frugal”, allowing herself only one luxury: cigarettes.
“It did surprise me it went to court,” she said. “I got very depressed. I stopped even opening the envelopes because I was feeling sorry for myself. I was terrified I would have a police record.”
It was an additional stress at a time when her health was also causing her great concern. “I’m becoming very forgetful and I know my daughter is worried about Alzheimer’s,” she said, although she has been told that can cause confusion too. She cannot recollect her interview with BBC TV Licensing.
Salt also suffers from osteopenia, in which bones become less dense, raising the risk of fractures. She spends most of the time “reading or watching the telly” and enjoys films, the news and wildlife programmes. She describes herself as “just one of millions of hard-up [people] who let things go a bit” and have then been “hounded” by TV Licensing.
Many of them are vulnerable and most are struggling to make ends meet — a problem that campaigners warn will increase as other costs rise. Magistrates’ courts are already packed with prosecutions for licence fee evasion, with the legal charity Appeal estimating that they constitute about one in 12 cases.
Such cases include Tracey Allan, who is registered disabled and claims she was only “two days” overdue on her payment when enforcement action started. Emma Mitchell, a primary school cook and a single mother of three, says she couldn’t afford the direct debit. Susheel Madhas, 42, a Bradford-based recruitment consultant, feels he wasn’t given sufficient warning before being taken to court.
In other cases on magistrates’ court lists, one 65-year-old from Leicestershire struggled to juggle her rising bills with severe health problems, and a pharmacist ran into financial problems during the pandemic — she was “terrified” she would have to disclose a conviction for not paying her licence and it could cost her her job.
Although those who watch the BBC’s streaming service, iPlayer, require a licence, many young people still watch its shows on laptops without being caught.
The licence fee, which raises about £3.75 billion a year, is under threat. Ministers have frozen it until 2024 but Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, has made clear her wish to abolish it entirely when the BBC’s charter is next renewed in 2027. Dorries said: “It is completely inexcusable that women and elderly people are being victimised in this way over a TV licence. There’s no reason why a fairer funding model for the BBC will stop it from thriving in the future. In the coming weeks I’ll be launching a review where we’ll be looking very hard at what the alternatives are.”
In 2015 George Osborne, then chancellor, gave the BBC responsibility for funding free licences to the over-75s — and the eventual decision to ask them to pay the fee.
According to research from the House of Commons Library, BBC TV licence evasion rose from 5.2 per cent in 2010-11 to 7.25 per cent in 2019-20.
‘Disability means I can’t go to court’
Campaigners including Appeal are still fighting for non-payment of the licence fee to be decriminalised. Although it is not recorded in the same way as more serious offences, licence fee evasion can come up on an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, which the charity points out disproportionately hurts women, who are more likely to work in sectors that require them, such as health and social care.
“We have represented women who have been harassed on the doorstep and misled by Capita and TV Licensing staff,” said Naima Sakande, deputy director and investigator at Appeal. “We have witnessed first-hand how the threat of criminal conviction for TV licence non-payment has caused anguish, fear and distress in families already struggling to stay on top of bills.”
This was Allan’s experience. The grandmother, from Radcliffe in Greater Manchester, has been living on disability benefits since leaving her job as an Esso cashier after two decades following an operation in 2013. She had a previous conviction for TV licence evasion from 2014. In January 2020, she received a visit from an enforcement officer, who helped set her up with a direct debit to pay her bill. She claims the man assured her she would not be fined, and so was “gobsmacked” when she received a letter informing her that she was being prosecuted.
Allan 55, who mostly uses the BBC for news, pleaded not guilty by post, but the case was postponed several times because of Covid and was then moved from Bolton to Wigan magistrates’ court, further away from her home. She didn’t attend her trial on February 25 and was found guilty in her absence and fined £320.
Allan, who said she has made all her payments since, added: “I couldn’t get to Wigan; it’s too far to go with my disability. I don’t think they should take you to court.”
Dennis Reed, who runs Silver Voices, a campaign group for the elderly, said that although the over-75s have had to pay the TV licence since August 2020, nobody in the age group had been taken to court.
“I believe the BBC is scared stiff of taking any over-75 to court,” said Reed. “That’s a red line which I think Broadcasting House has told Capita not to cross.”
BBC TV Licensing has given assurances to the government that no enforcement or prosecutions have been authorised against over-75s who previously held a ‘free’ licence.
This does not spare the elderly from threatening letters, but BBC TV Licensing addresses them to “the occupier” rather than the individual. BBC TV Licensing claims it will send out these letters only if it believes there has been a change of address. However, The Sunday Times found at least three cases in which a person aged over 75 had been living at the property for more than 17 years.
For Mitchell, the threats appear anything but empty. She still stares at her door, fearing debt collectors will turn up, because of her unpaid fine for not paying her BBC TV licence. She was convicted in her absence in January and fined £660, which includes a victim surcharge of £66. She says she missed two monthly direct debit payments — totalling £25 — because she had replaced her card and hadn’t realised it had stopped taking the payments.
An enforcement officer (sales) came to the door and despite arranging a new direct debit, Mitchell — who said she only really watched EastEnders on the BBC — didn’t make the missed payment in time. Three weeks later, she received the prosecution letter in the post.
“She [the officer] wasn’t a very nice lady at all,” Mitchell said. “I had a lot going on with my daughter’s health, so my mind was elsewhere, which I did explain to the lady. I’m on basic money. I should have made it a priority but I had so much going on.”
Enforcement is ‘Dickensian’
Mitchell, who has two daughters aged 13 and 14 and an eight-year-old son, was convicted once before for not paying the TV licence, when her elder daughter was a baby and she could not afford it. Since then she has developed a fear of courts, having been a victim of domestic violence. She decided fighting the case would be hopeless.
TV Licensing said: “Prosecution is only ever a last resort. TV Licensing works with groups throughout the UK which support people who fall into financial difficulty and we have payment plans available to help people make regular payments.”
A group of charities led by Appeal wrote to Dorries this year, asking for her to take the same approach to those on low incomes and the vulnerable as she has with the elderly. Sakande added: “This is a Dickensian approach to a household bill and is unconscionable as people face the bite of rising living costs.”
One grandmother from Coalville in Leicestershire shares this view. The woman, a former nursing home care worker, who asked not to be named, says juggling her increasing bills with serious health problems became too much for her and she was forced to decide what she could and couldn’t pay.
“I’m struggling really badly,” she said. “I go to a mini market where I can get a bag of veg for £1 and other food ranging from 50p to £1. That’s how I live.”
The woman, who suffers from long-term health problems including osteoarthritis and the lung condition bronchiectasis, pleaded not guilty when she received her court summons, explaining her health circumstances on the form. Her case has been adjourned for a pre-trial review later this month at Coventry magistrates’ court.
Asked if she thinks the BBC should waive the licence fee for people on benefits, she answered: “They’re not in our position, they do not understand how we live, people on low income, what we have to do week-by-week just to survive. What is it going to achieve if I can’t pay the licence and I get stuck with a court fee that I can’t pay?”
From the bench I saw how these cases clog the system
During my time as a magistrate, BBC TV Licence prosecution sessions were listed with depressing regularity (Joan Horton writes). A few offenders might appear in person to offer mitigation — a woman whose partner dealt with admin but had left her or been sent to prison, non-English speakers, or a young person living independently for the first time who hadn’t realised a licence was needed.
Some pleaded that they couldn’t afford a BBC licence, while a few would submit a guilty plea by post and outline their means. But the majority failed to appear or respond to the charge. If there’s no plea, explanation or means information available, magistrates had to hear the prosecutor’s uncontested statement, and satisfy ourselves that it was procedurally correct before finding it “proved”. We then had to assume an average income, and based on this impose a financial penalty within our sentencing guidelines, add court costs and victim surcharge, plus a collection order authorising enforcement follow-up. When administrative enforcement failed, defaulters would be summoned to appear in court or face being arrested.
TV licence offenders are predominantly women, because they are more likely to be at home when the inspector calls. They mostly came from deprived areas, many were single mothers, and the majority turned out to be on benefits. Rent, council tax and utility bill arrears were common. The offender was usually unemployed, self-employed in the gig economy, or already had an order against wages or benefits, with insufficient income to support another. Bailiffs could return empty handed stating there were no assets of sufficient value.
The usual avenue was to negotiate an instalment plan. However, the offenders were often already paying arrears of rent and other bills. A BBC TV licence was low on their priority list.
When all else fails, a prison sentence can be imposed for failure to pay a fine. As a new magistrate, I sat alongside a senior colleague who told a defaulter that she needed to prioritise payment of her fine because we could send her to prison when her landlord, electricity company and other creditors couldn’t.
Most magistrates despaired of BBC TV licences, and wished for change. It is grossly unfair by taking no account of ability to pay, and by forbidding anyone to watch an alternative free service or even a foreign one without paying for the BBC first. If a law were to be passed requiring that people must spend a minimum sum in Tesco before being permitted to shop in Asda or Lidl there would be an outcry!
The cost-of-living crisis will create poverty on a scale unprecedented since the 1930s. That people need to make a fixed separate payment for a BBC TV licence when an increasing number already have to resort to food banks, hygiene banks and community kitchens is a recipe for disaster.
The courts are already clogged with BBC TV licence cases and the economic crisis will create more, equally unproductive cases. Yet there is a huge backlog of other more serious cases waiting to be heard. “Justice delayed is justice denied” when victims and witnesses are left in limbo, and defendants await their fate.
In 1993, a colleague and I put forward a motion to the Magistrates’ Association to decriminalise BBC TV licence default, which would at least remove the issue from the criminal justice system.
It passed through the association to reach the AGM at the London Guildhall. We both spoke before an audience of approximately 800 including the Lord Chancellor, and the motion was passed with a majority to become official association policy. The Lord Chancellor’s Department and government do consult with the association on many aspects of justice, and dialogue is generally productive. On this subject however, nothing has changed.
I believe the solution is for the UK to abolish BBC TV licences and fund the BBC from general taxation in the same way as other public services. This would be the fairest, cheapest and simplest solution.
Joan Horton served as a magistrate for 34 years before retiring from the bench in 2017