TV Licensing's threatening letters are a bluff - and it's time they stopped, writes Dean Dunham KC
Fictional visits and phoney "investigations" should have no place and must be banned
There's a letter that lands on millions of doormats each year, dressed up in the language of menace.
Listen to this article
"OFFICIAL WARNING."
"Investigation opened."
"An officer may be sent to your address."
It is designed to frighten. And too often, it frightens exactly the people who have done nothing wrong.
Here's the thing the letters never make clear: you only need a TV Licence if you watch live television or use BBC iPlayer. Stream Netflix, watch catch-up on other services, and you owe nothing. Yet TV Licensing, run for the BBC by the private contractor Capita, fires these warnings at every address without a licence on its database, regardless of whether anyone there is breaking the law.
The tactics are, frankly, a bluff. Enforcement officers have no automatic right of entry; they need your permission or a court warrant to force entry into your home. Letters implying a visit "has been scheduled" when no such thing is planned aren't firm reminders, they're deliberately misleading. Last Christmas, the Corporation even had to apologise for letters threatening doorstep visits on Christmas Day, which campaigners rightly branded thuggish.
And who bears the brunt? Students, badgered at term-time addresses for licences they're often covered by or don't need. The elderly and vulnerable, including people with dementia, pressured into paying for something they may never use. Age UK has warned for years that horror stories are inevitable.
Collecting the fee is legitimate. The BBC has to be funded somehow, and evasion isn't victimless. But there's a difference between enforcing the law and manufacturing fear. Honest letters that plainly explain the rules would do the job. Fictional visits and phoney "investigations" should have no place and I call for such tactics to be banned.
Scare the guilty, if you must. Stop terrifying the innocent.
____________________
Dean Dunham KC presents LBC's Consumer Hour every Sunday from 9pm-10pm.
LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.
To contact us email opinion@lbc.co.uk