Meet the pensioner who hasn't had a TV since 1978 - why are the licence police are STILL after her?

The Daily Mail (U.K.) ^ | January 19, 2009 | Claire Ellicott

[Stoat]

The television licence enforcers were nothing if not persistent. For five years they pursued 69-year-old Hannah Patricia Humphris with a succession of intimidating missives demanding she buy a licence.
 

The pursuit culminated with a letter this month threatening her with prosecution and a possible £1,000 fine.
 

But the TV licensing police had overlooked one crucial fact: Miss Humphris hasn't owned a television since 1978.
 

 

Hannah Patricia Humphris doesn't own a television, but is still being pursued by the TV Licencing Authority

She got rid of her set that year because it wasn't working properly and, she said, there were no interesting programmes.
 

Mrs Humphris, from Neath, South Wales, had informed the authorities she did not have a TV when the letters started to mount up.
 

But they wrote back to say she would be interviewed under caution and could be prosecuted if she was caught watching or recording television programmes.

 

Miss Humphris described the letter of January 2, which was headed 'Official Warning' as 'intimidating' and 'threatening'.
 

Despite her again telling them that she did not have a television they insisted that an officer would have to visit her house to ensure she was telling the truth.
 

The pensioner, a former shorthand typist who lives on her own, said: 'I told them to search every nook and cranny of my house because they wouldn't find what they were looking for.
 

 

[Stoat]

My apologies for the severe editing of this article...this was done in order to remain in compliance with Free Republic rules pertaining to the posting of articles from The Daily Mail.  Please click on  the original article link to read the full story.

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The TV Licencing department have been accused of heavy-handed enforcement tactics

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More about UK TV licensing for those not familiar:

Television licensing in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the United Kingdom and the Crown dependencies, a television licence is required to receive any publicly broadcast television service, from any source. This includes the commercial channels, cable and satellite transmissions. The money from the licence fee is used to provide radio, television and Internet content for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and Welsh-language television programmes for S4C.

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Jamd - TV Licence Men

(Getty photo not posted due to Free Republic rules)

31st October 1956: A Television Detector van from the GPO combs the streets of London armed with three aerials designed to detect the signal of a television in use. An investigator then checks whether the owner possesses a TV licence and if not, instigates legal proceedings

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BBC ON THIS DAY 1 1952 Test drive for TV detector vans

1952: Test drive for TV detector vans

A new method for tracking down users of unlicensed television sets has been unveiled in the UK.

 

Up to 150,000 people do not have a television licence

 

[oscars300]

Gotta love European “TV licensing schemes” - a wonderful system of diet-Orwellian taxation.

[Stoat]

A few of the posted comments from Daily Mail readers:

I also do not have a T.V and the flippin' Licencing Authority used to make me so angry. They used to send those letters, every few months (no matter what I wrote to them). They sounded so threatening and harassing. What right do they have to come into my house to see and check I don't own something???
They used to come around with their van's to check, but as we didn't have a t.v there was nothing to find, except for the neighbour up the road, who didn't have a license and was fined. She blamed me for telling not having a T.V. and being honest about it.
Since I've moved, they once again wrote, but this time have stopped harassing.

- Sandra, Wales, 18/1/2009 18:59

 

We haven't owned a TV for some years either (not near 30 years, but still....) And have found the same intimidating harrassment from the licencing authority, despite informing them that we do not own a set!
I feel they must enjoy the power trip of sending these letters out to people because if it were only about enforcement surely they would just send the inquiry officer with the aim of catching out the dodgers and having them fined!
It appears the 1998 Harrassment act doesn't work for the 'little people'
Scrap the licence fee, it is a hugely outdated concept in the 21st century and gives the BBC an unfair advantage over other companies.

- Mandie, Notts, UK, 18/1/2009 20:20

'TV Licensing' is not a department of the BBC. It is a private company contracted to administer and collect the fee. They charge the BBC £121 MILLION pounds a year which comes straight out of the fees we pay.
Just another reason to scrap the fee and privatise the BBC.

- Bruce, London, 18/1/2009 20:48

[dr_lew]

I never knew! ... but “diet-Orwellian” ??? ( Google doesn’t help. )

[Impy]

! I never heard of such a ridiculous thing. You need to license to watch tv?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom#Licence_fee_enforcement

“TV detector vans” to catch offenders? “If a colour TV licence is not purchased for an address, TV Licensing agents — known as “enquiry officers” or “enforcement officers” — make unannounced visits to the address.”

If you must fleece the public just tax the cable or satellite bill like we do. The money wasted on enforcement of this fascist bs is ridiculous.

I have the perfect name for a minor UK party now, “Stop Telly Licensing”.

[Ezekiel]

What % of Mooslims don't have a TV license? Do they harass the Mooslims? Do they cruise the Mooslim 'hoods?

Lord help this poor woman if she ever has to fly. She looks like a magnet for special screening.

[TheWasteLand]

but “diet-Orwellian” ??? ( Google doesn’t help. )

In a diet-Orwellian dystopia, Big Brother is watching your calories for you.

[Las Vegas Dave]

Lord help this poor woman if she ever has to fly. She looks like a magnet for special screening.

And by her appearance (coat and scarf), she cannot afford heating her apartment.
Possible she is also being watched by the gas police?

[mkjessup]

Well, if the UK troops leaving Iraq needed a use for any leftover, unexploded IED devices they might have confiscated, I can think of a few TV Licensing Vans that would be appropriate targets, lol

Using the logic of the ‘TV Licensing Authority’, even the oxygen in the atmosphere could theoretically be taxed, based on how much the average British subject breathes in.

[WKUHilltopper]

You think this is bogus? Wait until you start paying your “carbon taxes”. And wait until the neighborhood brown shirts (11 year olds) report you for keeping your lights on too long.

When government gets too big, it becomes out of control and has nothing else to do but hammer citizens and lean on them. This is what tyrants do. UK and China are the models for the US.

[LukeL]

when you think about it how is this any different then taxes we pay for cable or satellite? However over the air broadcasts should be free.

[bethybabes69]

Labour Government laws passed recently dictate that, Immigrant asylum seekers get a gratis licence for their free house in Britain, along with . . . .
Free central heating
Free telephone with completely free calls indefinitely picked up by the taxpayer.
Free domestic appliances
Free brand new 20" colour TV for every room in the house
Free house repairs which must be carried out within 7 days
Free window cleaning on the house
Adequate cot and highchair facilities
Appropriate sterilisation equipment;
Child safety gates on all stairways;
Childproof resistant devices or casement stays on all windows;
Appropriate play areas both inside and outside the Property
Full payment of rent, council tax, water rates, gas and electricity bills

And there's more, (I'm not joking) see the link below:

SEE HERE

[DB]

It was legal to have pretty much whatever type receiver you wanted in the US until cell phones came along. Then there were banned frequencies that manufacturers weren’t allowed to include in general purpose receivers sold in the US and indiviuals were not allowed to receive.

Long standing freedoms being destroyed one little step at a time...

[The Duke]

when you think about it how is this any different then taxes we pay for cable or satellite?

Other than it being ridiculous?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

The idea of central heating is only catching on slowly in the UK. And most people over there still drink their warm beer in what we would consider chilly flats (apartments).

[Spktyr]

If you don’t use those systems, you don’t pay for them. There’s a tax ON the service, but unless you live in a very regressive “progressive taxation” area, you don’t pay for it.

[Spktyr]

Actually, it wasn’t the cell phones but the realization that people were listening in to police traffic.

[Polynikes]

“most people over there still drink their warm beer in what we would consider chilly flats (apartments).”

That's because Lucas makes refrigerators too. :~) /obscure British joke.

[Drango]

Here in the US, we don’t have a license fee. Instead, we tax people and force them to fund PBS/NPR. Much better system. /s

[oscars300]

It’s Orwellian in the same sense that Diet Coke is Coke ;)