Nearly 130 people are prosecuted every day for failing to pay their TV licence with many still being found guilty despite having crippling medical conditions.
Elderly people in their 80s and 90s and those with dementia and cancer are among the 44,000 in the year to June 2022 who were convicted and fined up to £1,000 having been hauled into court by the BBC – making it the most common crime in the country, excluding motoring offences.
The poorest people in Britain struggling to pay the £159 TV licence make up the vast majority of cases with a legal charity fearing ‘we may see the same level of miscarriages of justice as took place in the Post Office prosecutions’.
Former CPS chief Lord Ken Macdonald said all criminal cases should be brought by the Crown Prosecution Service and warned there was a conflict of interest in the BBC launching its own legal action.
While the Taxpayers’ Alliance wants the licence fee scrapped and replaced with a general tax for a slimmed down BBC.
The findings have been unearthed in a Talk TV investigation, with tens of thousands of cases – 70 per cent of which contained women – being heard in closed-door hearings under the much-criticised Single Justice Procedure.
Have YOU been prosecuted despite being ill? email matt.strudwick@mailonline.co.uk
A Talk TV investigation elderly people in their 80s and 90s and those with dementia and cancer among those being prosecuted for not paying their TV licence
The poorest people in Britain struggling to pay the £159 TV licence make up the vast majority of cases with a legal charity fearing ‘we may see the same level of miscarriages of justice as took place in the Post Office prosecutions’
The controversial system – where cases are decided by a single magistrate – was introduced in 2015 to speed up court hearings for low-level offences but critics say it does not hold the same transparency as open courts.
Ministry of Justice figures show that there were 47,622 prosecutions and 44,106 convictions for failing to pay the television licence in the year to the end of June 2022.
Talk TV obtained legal papers to reveal how seriously ill people were still prosecuted despite writing statements to the courts to defend themselves.
One said: ‘I’m currently seriously ill with ‘very severe left ventricular systolic dysfunction’ and have been referred to the transplant team.
‘I’m struggling emotionally with what my future might look like or if I will actually have a future. My husband lost his job and his income has dropped about £600 a month.’
Another said: ‘I am the main carer for my wife and children who all have mental health issues. I am being treated for cancer myself so I have a lot to deal with at the moment.’
Lord Macdonald says there is a conflict of interest in the BBC launching its own legal action.
He said: ‘The interest of the BBC in this matter, of course, is ensuring that people pay their licence fee and that’s a corporate interest which shouldn’t necessarily be wrapped up with a prosecutorial interest and indeed shouldn’t be.
Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer’s (pictured) said in December threatening to send people to jail for not paying the TV licence was ‘morally indefensible’
The Taxpayers’ Alliance has called for the licence fee to scrapped and replaced with a general tax for a slimmed down BBC. Pictured: The BBC headquarters at New Broadcasting House
‘I think all criminal prosecutions should be brought by the independent prosecutor – The Crown Prosecution Service. We saw what happened in the Post Office.’
The legal charity Appeal warned MPs about what it saw as similar risks facing TV Licensing in 2020, telling the Justice Select Committee: ‘We may see the same level of miscarriages of justice as took place in the Post Office prosecutions.’
Speaking to Jeremy Kyle and Rosie Wright on Talk Today, Joe Ventre, of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: ‘What we would like to see at the Taxpayers’ Alliance is a complete reform of the system that jettisons the licence fee altogether.
‘So in essence, what we’d like to see is a really slimmed down BBC… funded by general taxation.
‘Whether you support it or not, the licence fee model is quickly running out of steam.’
In December the Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said threatening to send people to jail for not paying the TV licence was ‘morally indefensible’ as she announced a £10.50 rise in the annual fee.
Writing exclusively in the Daily Mail, she put the corporation on notice with a pledge that a review into its funding model will ‘specifically look at the issue of criminal prosecution of the licence fee’.
In a statement, a TV Licensing spokesperson said: ‘TV Licensing’s primary aim is to help people stay licensed and avoid prosecution – which is always a last resort.’
MailOnline has contacted the BBC for comment.
Have YOU been prosecuted despite being ill? email matt.strudwick@mailonline.co.uk
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