A GB News viewer has been prosecuted for not paying the TV Licence when she says she was grieving the death of her husband, in the latest case to emerge from the controversial fast-track courts.
The 57-year-old from Middlesbrough was taken to court after she had been confronted by a TV Licensing agent on the doorstep in late May.
A conviction was then handed down last month in a private Single Justice Procedure hearing, in a court system which has been beset by scandal.
In her letter to the court, the woman sets out: “At the time they came to my house I had just lost my husband.
“My head was all over the place.”
When she was interviewed on the doorstep, she conceded that the TV Licence had expired two weeks earlier, and that she had watched GB News a week ago.
In her mitigation letter, she wrote: “I had rang the TV Licence to tell them I don’t watch BBC or any live TV and had told them I wanted to cancel (which I still do). The day the man came I had no TV on.
“I do not need a licence, I don’t watch or record programmes including Sky (I have Virgin but only internet so I plead guilty for that.)
“I use my TV to watch DVDs and YouTube.”
A magistrate sitting in Crawley accepted her guilty plea and gave her a six-month conditional discharge. She received a criminal conviction, and must also pay £86 in court costs and fees.
In Single Justice Procedure cases, magistrates decide cases based on written evidence alone including mitigation, and no representative for the prosecutor is present.
The Standard’s long-running investigation has exposed how vulnerable, ill, and incapacitated defendants are taken to court and convicted without a check being done to determine if cases are still in the public interest in light of the mitigation letters.
Magistrates have the power to refer cases back to prosecutors for a public interest check. It is not known if this happened for the grieving widow’s case.
Magistrates spoke out in March to say that the Single Justice Procedure is broken and in urgent need of reform, including greater transparency, better training, and increased involvement from prosecutors.
But no reforms have been brought forward by government more than seven months later.
A TV Licensing spokesperson told The Standard: “TV Licensing’s primary aim is to support customers to help them get licensed and prosecution is always a last resort. We have a duty to enforce the law when there is evidence that someone has avoided paying for a TV Licence when they need one.
“We give customers a number of opportunities to tell us about personal circumstances which may significantly affect their ability to stay licensed before and during the prosecution process, and we would encourage people to engage with us directly as early as possible so we can properly assess any information given.”
