Don't Pay the TV License Bullies

Dear Sir/Madam

As you have not responded to our letters yet, you have left us no alternative but to proceed with the final stages of our investigation.

An Officer has been scheduled to visit [my postcode] to find out if TV is being watched or recorded illegally. The Officer may visit your property any day of the week, morning or evening.

The information below explains the procedure. You may refer to it during a visit from the Officer.

Yours faithfully,

Joe Gestapo
Nazi Germany Enforcement Division

I was going to write on a completely different subject but today, when a weedy young guy with a clipboard came knocking on my door not once but twice in one hour, I thought the time was right for a little more antisocial humour.

I haven't paid a TV license in almost three years – making a saving of more than four-hundred pounds.

That's all I'm going to say. I've never communicated with TV Licensing by phone, at the door or in writing. Contrary to what some naïve people may believe I have no legal obligation to do so.

I know some people consider the letters and visits from TV License Man a nuisance and get pretty bent out of shape about it all. But I don't worry too much about him. I think it's hilarious. I especially love reading their letters. I wish I'd kept them all actually, and I think I shall do in future. They don't know my name, hence the address is headed “Legal Occupier” and I'm referred to as “Sir/Madam”. Nor will they ever know my name if I can help it, for all the good it will do them. I'll never communicate to them because no good can come of it. Oh, and if you are in any doubt of my legal right to do this then check out this link http://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2006-05-15c.69812.h#g69812.r0 which is the government minister responsible answering the question for us.

“Members of the public who do not require a television licence are under no obligation to inform TV Licensing of the fact.”
     Shaun Woodward, 15th May 2006.

If you've paid your license, grudgingly, for years you might be curious about the process. What they do is they send a cycle of letters which start off quite polite, asking you if you can furnish them with your name and informing you of the many convenient ways to pay. Then if you keep binning them the language gets more serious. Words to the effect of “we have a big fat database and it says you haven't got a license”. Then finally you get a letter like the one above, just before an inspector comes a knocking. To my knowledge they've only knocked on my door 3 or 4 times in the last three years. Most times they knock on my neighbour's door as well. I live in an apartment building, so I can hear them knocking a short distance down the corridor. I get a letter at least every month. I put them in the bin with the same frequency, usually unopened.

Why don't I pay a TV License? Well lack of a TV aside (wink, wink!) I do have a number of issues with the way the BBC covers the news. Pretty much all I'd watch the BBC for is news anyway. But it is nothing to do with the BBC in actual fact.

And it's everything to do with them. According to the BBC we're meant to have all these warm, fuzzy feelings about “Auntie”, which has, allegedly, been upholding standards in broadcasting for almost a century. Don't get me wrong, I think there's a case for publicly funded public service broadcasting – something free of the influence of media moguls, advertisers and the lowest common denominator – but the BBC only partly fills that role and does a great many things which are a waste of poor, gullible fee payers money. I don't pay the fee because Auntie has another face, and it is gruesome to me. It's the face of a  bully and it's a bare face of lies.

Where the lying bullies go to work

The organisation known as TV Licensing and The BCC are exactly the same entity. Here is a BBC response to a Freedom of Information Request on a number of very interesting points, http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/foi/classes/disclosure_logs/rfi20101149_tv_licensing_legal_requirements.pdf . Again I quote the Beeb...

“Before I respond to your question, it may be helpful if I first explain the nature of the relationship between  TV Licensing and the BBC. ‘TV Licensing’ is a trade mark of the BBC and is used under licence by  companies contracted by the BBC to administer the collection of television licence fees and enforcement of  the television licensing system. ”
     Dan McGregor
     Senior Policy Adviser, TV Licensing Management Team
     September 2010.

As I'm writing this the little scrote from the Gestapo is knocking. Again. I walk to the spy hole. I watch him stand, slack jawed for a while longer. He knows I'm watching him. In the past one of his fellow henchmen, a middle aged man on that occasion, shouted “I know you're in there”. Yes. And I know you're out there, where all you can do is waste your time. I watched him quietly for a while before he, too, shuffled off.

Artists impression

What am I supposed to do? Open the door? Answer their questions?

If I was speaking to a polite, forthright and honest organisation I may. Just out of respect for a man with a crappy job. However the more letters I read, and the more advertisements I watch (yes, on TV, but not necessarily as it's being broadcast live, wink, wink!) the more I think these guys are bullies, using the scare tactics and lies to get what they want. By that I mean the institution of the BBC, its letter machine and its door to door lackeys. They're all part of something rotten.

Back to the letter now. Almost every line of that letter is head-scratchingly offensive. Am I living in Stalinist Russia, or Hitler's Germany? Are these people agents of the state? You might think so. The “final stages of our investigation” - am I getting put on a train to Auschwitz? Is the final stage my execution? “The Officer may visit your property any day of the week, morning or evening” – Oh really? He can come and get me whenever he wants, can he? “The information below explains the procedure. You may refer to it during a visit from the Officer” – Can I, now? It sounds like I'm being Mirandized.

They can come for you any day of the week, morning or evening

Lets read on in the letter with some highlights from “What you need to know about the enforcement process.”

• We can apply to court for a search warrant to gain access to your property
• An Officer can take your statement under caution, in compliance with the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.
• Anything you say to the Officer may be used as evidence in court.

Lets take them one by one.

Search warrant - I'm no legal expert but I'm fairly certain that a search warrant requires some evidence of an offence. Now as they don't even have my name after three years, and I'm not obliged to give them my name, something tells me if they had any evidence I would have heard about it by now. Also there is the old maxim “innocent until proven guilty,” so I'd bet my bottom dollar no-one's going to issue them a warrant to search the property of the offender known only as The Occupier on the off-chance he's watching the tube.

Statement under caution – Even the police can't (or shouldn't) compel me to make a statement against my wishes, not before I've received legal counsel at least. Do they really think I'm stupid enough to start mouthing off at some flunky who can then give my description and claim what he likes in court? No thanks.

Anything I say to the (capital 'O') Officer may be used as evidence in court – There they are, reading me my rights again. I can see how some people might think these people have some kind of police powers whereas they absolutely do not. In fact if I were a jury (not that I'm necessarily going to get a trial by jury any more, even for a real crime) would I be inclined to believe the word of a man who earns commission for every license fee evader he brings in? Here's a cheeky example of how that can go wrong, and also the teasing implication these goons also need your signature:

TV license worker guilty of pay scam
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/tm_objectid=16169792&method=full&siteid=50082-name_page.html

So if there are any sceptics left they're probably thinking about one, or both, of two things. Probably the two things most of us think of when we think of TV Licensing.(1) Detector Vans, and (2) The Dreaded Database. Well I guess I'd better come quietly. It looks like they've got me bang to rights, eh?

Negative. When I was a lad, in the 1990s, I remember TV License propaganda/advertisements like this one...

Classic TV Licensing propaganda

And here's an eminently trustworthy press release from...you guessed it...the BBC, which speaks of the new and improved detector vans:

Bollocks about detector vans from the BBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2003/06_june/24/licensing_detector_vans.shtml

(By the way I saw 2 items with very similar content, this one from 2003 and another one from 2009. Both presented the information that detector vans no longer have to be marked as a new development. I think we're supposed to be scared if we see any inconspicuous white van near our home. They honestly must think we're idiots).

I'll save you the time and trouble of reading it. Essentially they can now detect if a television is in use from up to 60 metres away! Gasp! Notice how its detecting if a television is in use, which is absolutely not the same as watching television programs as they are being broadcast, which is what the license fee covers. It is perfectly legal to own and operate a TV to watch DVDs/play games etc. So we're talking about a piece of technology that can detect a TV which is not only receiving a UHF band transmissions – note I said receiving, which means no EM signal needs be transmitted anywhere – but is also decoding the digital information to make it suitable for viewing, which has been the only way to watch television since the digital switch over (computers notwithstanding). That's an extraordinary piece of kit. If it exists in the form they claim, which of course it must if Auntie says so, it must be expensive.

They could be anywhere!

And indeed it is. Here's a quote from the website whatdotheyknow.com, where Mr. Jones, in a letter writing battle over a Freedom of Information Request with a very contentious and defensive BBC tries to to justify a cost to the license fee payer of £108,474 per van, revealed in a previous FOI request.

“Under the terms of the 2000 Act, please tell me whether or not
evidence obtained by detector van/portable detection equipment has  ever been presented in court during the prosecution of an alleged  licence fee evader. In this case a simple yes or no answer will suffice.”
    Peter Jones
    (Seeker After the Truth)
    December 2010

I'd encourage you to read the whole back and forth at this link http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/evidence_from_tv_detection_equip#incoming-164153 . The BCC twists and turns, delays and uses the ridiculous excuse that giving an answer may be “prejudicing law enforcement.” But ultimately the truth will out.

“I can confirm that TVL has not, to date, used detection evidence in Court.”
    Dan McGregor 
    Senior Policy Adviser, TV Licensing Management Team
    April 2011

He goes on to claim that the evidence of the vans are used to obtain a warrant, not a conviction in court. Seems a little conspicuous that he didn't confirm that this has ever been achieved either, and the implication is that it's their intended use only. Read scare tactics. They've all but admitted the vans purpose is to scare people into paying their TV tax, or else why the smoke and mirrors? I think we've established some pretty convincing evidence that TVL prosecution relies on doorstep confessions, probably signed, and the economics of using vans at £108k a throw means they are going to be pretty rare in any event. Believe what you want to believe.

Van operator

Also since the technology employed in their vans is a closely guarded secret, or alternatively bogus and unable to establish conclusively that the law is being broken at all, I don't see how any magistrate could accept it as grounds of a search warrant. You can't use a secret technology as evidence in a court of law of any kind without a scientific explanation of how it operates, and believe me I've searched quite a bit trying to find out how anyone can detect if TV equipment is being used to watch TV programs as they are being broadcast. Even speed guns have to be calibrated regularly and documented as such to be used as evidence in a speeding ticket. I'm not saying magistrates haven't been hook-winked in the past, potentially based on doorstep confessions with detector evidence thrown in, but in itself it just seems like a load of shit. I believe, if they even operate, they can detect the electromagnetic disturbance of electrical equipment, perhaps even TVs or VDUs specifically, but that, as we've established, is definitely not evidence of an offence in itself. If you know better please prove me wrong.

The van was £100k but the gobshite came free

So what about the database? Well the beloved detector van has been given a bit of a rest in adverts of recent years. I think they realise that people are starting to wise up. But the database is very real. They do indeed have a list of the approximately 30 million addresses in the UK. I know this because I keep getting their junk-mail, as I did in my previous address. The address is always accurate. Funny how they don't have my name though, isn't it? Am I supposed to be worried that they know my home is unlicensed? Knowing as I do that I'm not obliged to tell them if I don't have a television, or indeed who I am. So they know my residence exists and is unlicensed. So what?

In a network diagram, like this jarg one, databases are represented as tins of beans of rainbow hue.

Basically I'm trying, in my long winded way, to make a point here. We're supposed to be living in a free country here, and the terrorist are supposed to be dead jealous. And yet we've still got these crummy little outfits harassing people, pretending like they're a legitimate agency and wasting the proceeds of this license-fee monopoly on goons employed by companies like Capita to bully people out of their rights.

In time I'd like to say more about how important our rights are. And how we shouldn't allow ourselves to be conditioned to believe we are powerless, and that we can be prosecuted and persecuted when we can't. I don't want propaganda put through my letterbox which is full of threats and lies. If you don't think critically and you don't know your rights it makes it that much easy for the authorities, or anyone else, to abuse those rights and lie to you. It's easy to take away rights you didn't know you had. But that's a different topic for a different day.

As for your rights, if, unlike me, you don't like these people coming to your door then do the following. Write them a letter, signed "The Occupier" (no need to use your name - in fact don't ever do that) and tell them that you are withdrawing "the implied right of access". This is the legal right of access which the postman or a door to door salesman exercises when he comes up your garden path or into your block of flats: as long as they have a sensible reason to be there it's kosher in UK law...unless it is revoked of course. Tell them "I will consider any further encroachment on my property trespassing". Don't make any comment about whether or not you have a TV or whether you think you should have to pay the license. That defeats the object. You might also like to say that "I will consider any further unsolicited letters harassment". That's it. If they continue to send letters, don't open them. Take a pen then write "return to sender, no contract" on them and put them back in the post when it's convenient. I can't guarantee they'll get the message but I've read it will keep them away for two years or more before the system resets itself.

Let me make some kind of closing statement.

Everyone who pays the TV license should ask themselves the question – are you paying it because you're happy with what you get for your money? Because you believe it's the right thing to do? Or are you afraid of what might happen if you don't pay. If it's the former then good on you. You're an honest person. I respect that. But if it's the latter then you're what's wrong with the world. You're letting yourself be intimidated into paying for something you don't want, didn't ask for, and you're believing the lies of a bully.

I'd encourage you to read this blog http://tv-licensing.blogspot.com/ for more information and try to get the lying bullies at the BBC put out of business.