Television Licensing

[meggle]

Is the TV Licensing company (TVL) exempt from the protection from Harrassment Act? I only use a TV for watching DVDs and VHS tapes so I do not need a TV licence. As a result, I keep getting increasingly threatening letters from TVL threatening enforcement visits and requiring me to inform them if I think I do not need a TV licence. I do not have to inform the CAA that I do not pilot aircraft so do not lneed a pilot's licence; I do not have to inform the police that I do not keep S1 firearms so do not need a firearms' licence. Why should I have to inform TVL that I do not use apparatus to receive live TV broadcasts so do not need a TV licence?

[islandgirl]

You can make a declaration to Licensing and it should stop

[meggle]

I know people who have done that but it only stops for a little while. Why should we have to go to that trouble anyway though? We don't have to inform every other licence issuer if we don't need the licence(s) they issue.

[islandgirl]

That is the way it is. As someone who frequently issues fines in the TV licence court and who punishes further those who do not pay them we accept that this is the system whether we like it or not

[efpom]

My recollection is that using receiving apparatus to watch live broadcasts in the UK or its territorial waters is a criminal offence but that if not so used, no offence exists,

But it seems to me that TVL insists that everyone declare to it that they have not committed that criminal offence.That does seem to me to reverse the burden of proof and puts everyone in the position of having to prove a negative.

I can find no legal authority for that proposition.

Amusingly, one one occasion I was involved in the prosecution of the owners of a cargo vessel - the owners being a London company. The prosecution collapsed. because TVL set to its proof, could not prove that on the date(s) of the asserted offences the vessel was in the UK or it's territorial waters.

[meggle]

It seems very much a case of guilty until proven innocent. TVL are the only licensing organization that demand we explicitly inform them we don't need a licence. The real point of my question, however, is that their threatening letter appear to be a course of action intended to strike fear into those who do not have or need a TV licence.

[efpom]

"The BBC (and contractors acting on its behalf) must comply with the law in collecting and enforcing the licence fee."

https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/...framework-AB16

[des8]

Many years ago when first married and no TV, we often received those letters intimating that as we had no TV licence we were breaking the law.
Always binned them without answering, and one day two men on doorstep saying the same thing.
I refused to confirm or deny I had a TV, so they pointed at roof and asked why I had an aerial fixed to it.
I responded that I had assumed previous house owners liked wildlife and had fixed the perch there for the birds.

They left and we never heard another word but I did ensure I purchased a licence when we eventually bought a TV!)