70% of All TVL Dodgers Caught are Women

[Teddy Bear]

The likely reason for the headline is that women are more likely to be at home than men, at least according to the article below.
I would add that women are less likely to be forceful enough to tell the TVL representative to get off her property and not bother her again, as she has the right to do. But the figure also suggests that s good percentage of these women will be single mothers struggling to bring up their children.
But so long as the corrupt BBC is fed, it's a small sacrifice. As we now only too well, the BBC will only show PC sympathy to make themselves look good when it doesn't cost them anything.

Women are the biggest TV Licence dodgers: More than 100,000 given criminal records last year for not paying £145.50 fee

• One in ten of all cases in magistrates courts are TV Licence prosecutions
• They have a 90 per cent conviction rate over about 180,000 total cases
  
• Women are more likely to be caught as they are home when inspectors call

By Damien Gayle for MailOnline

Women are most likely to be criminalised for not having a TV Licence, with more than 100,000 convicted for failing to pay the £145.50 fee last year, a report claims.

Seven in ten of those found guilty of failing to buy a licence - which funds the BBC and is compulsory for all television viewers - were women, according to figures seen by The Times.

With TV Licence offences reportedly accounting for one in ten of all cases heard in magistrates courts in England and Wales, it raises questions over the time and cost to the taxpayer of prosecuting the crime.

Campaigners have stepped up calls on Government to decriminalise the offence which, said reportedly had a 90 per cent conviction rate over 180,000 cases.

It is widely suggested that the crime disproportionately targets women simply because they are more likely to be at home when inspectors call.

The paper did not state where it got its figures from. A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said the data did not seem to be available anywhere in his department.

A year-long review into BBC funding, due to report early in the next parliament, is underway with detailed examination of the case for decriminalisation.

Under the new proposals, fee evasion will become a civil offence punishable with a fine, similar to missing a gas bill or not paying a Sky TV subscription.

Under current rules, anyone found guilty of evading the licence fee is given a criminal record and can be fined up to £1,000. If they fail to pay the fine they can be jailed – which happened in 32 cases last year.

In contrast, shoplifters, thugs and vandals are routinely given spot fines of £80 and are not saddled with a criminal record. Similarly, thousands of drugs users who are caught smoking cannabis are given fixed penalties and dodge court action.

Tory MP Andrew Bridgen has been among the leaders of the decriminalisation campaign. He told The Times the figures exposed how the licence fee enforcement disproportionately affects women.

'The licence fee is an anachronism, it discriminates against the poorest in society.'

Rachel Halford, chief executive of the charity Women In Prison, reiterated the claim that women were disproportionately affected because they were more likely to be at home when inspectors call.

The review’s findings are to be presented to the BBC Trust and both Houses of Parliament before further law changes end criminal sanctions for licence fee evasion.

[Teddy Bear]

Another Mail article with a little more detail on the topic.

Victims of the TV licence bully boys: Women are far more likely than men to be prosecuted for TV licence dodging, and the reasons are deeply worrying

• Prosecutors race through scores of identical cases repeating a formula of allegations, pleas and excuses
• Every week, in courts in England and Wales, almost 3,000 people are issued with fines for not having a TV licence
• The licence fee raises £3.72 billion a year for the BBC

By Steve Bird for the Daily Mail

They don’t look like the typical criminal. The vast majority are women. Very few actually attend the court hearings to which they are summoned. Instead, a prosecutor simply races through scores of near-identical cases, repeating a well-rehearsed formula of allegations, pleas and excuses.

Often the magistrates fine the perpetrators in just a matter of seconds.

The crime? TV licence dodging.

Every week, in courts across England and Wales, almost 3,000 people are issued with fines of up to £1,000 for not having a TV licence. Unlike non-payment of a gas or electricity bill, failure to pay the £145.50 annual fee results in a criminal record.

With more than 150,000 people convicted a year and courts being clogged (Culture Secretary Sajid Javid has said that 10 per cent of magistrates court cases concern TV licence dodgers), the Government has called for a review of whether non-payment should be classified as a crime.

Meanwhile, court staff are being forced to set aside entire days, once a week or every fortnight, to process such cases. And many city magistrates are too busy with more important crimes and are farming out TV licence cases to small regional courts.

The licence fee raises £3.72 billion a year for the BBC. It is illegal to watch or record live television using a TV, computer, tablet or even mobile phone if you are an adult under the age of 75 without a licence. While the offence normally results in a fine, it is not punishable by imprisonment. But you can be jailed for non-payment of a fine — with about 50 offenders a year being jailed.

The problem has become more pressing in recent years because fewer households have traditional TV sets as more people watch ‘catch-up’ TV on tablets, computers and smartphones. According to Ofcom, the telecommunications watchdog, 300,000 fewer homes had a television at the end of last year, compared to the previous year.

BACK in 2011, the BBC gave the business process management firm Capita an eight-year £560 million contract to administer the licence. The company employs 1,400 staff to chase non-payers — many on target-related bonuses.

I decided to spend a day at two typical courts — Warwickshire Justice Centre and Wigan Magistrates’ Court — to observe how our justice system is getting bogged down by countless TV licence-dodgers, most of them women. What is remarkable is how few of them attend hearings.

Magistrates listen to a representative from TV Licensing (technically a prosecutor) outline each case and then they take advice from a legal advisor. Otherwise, apart from the clerk and a court usher, the room is empty. It is a perfunctory affair.

Usually, non-payers have returned a form registering their guilty plea, adding details of their income and any mitigating circumstances to be considered in their absence.

During that one day in Wigan, £35,000 of fines (including costs) were issued to 187 people, only four of whom attended the court. The eldest was a disabled 69-year-old woman fined £195. The youngest was an 18-year-old unemployed woman fined £195 for not having a licence for one week.

The biggest fine, of £500, was for a woman convicted of the offence for a third time.

Of the four women who turned up, two were near tears as they explained how money-troubles had got on top of them. Four others had sent notes to plead not guilty, which meant that a trial date had to be set — at yet more public expense. In some cases, people who had failed to respond to letters about non-payment were convicted in their absence.

In Warwickshire, 171 cases were processed in a similarly methodical way. All had admitted guilt. Again, only four defendants turned up — in the hope of persuading, in person, the magistrates to issue a small fine by saying they were on a low income. In total, around £60,000 in fines, including court costs, were handed down.

It doesn’t serve the interests of justice to lock someone up for not paying. Like non-payment of utility bills, they should be dealt with by the civil law. We would certainly welcome the law being changed.
Malcolm Richardson, deputy chairman of the Magistrates’ Association

In Wigan, 141 of the 187 convicted were women (75 per cent). Of the 171 Warwickshire cases, 134 were female (78 per cent). Those figures are reflected nationally. In 2013, a total of 122,686 women were prosecuted and 106,932 convicted. That compared with 55,099 men prosecuted, and 46,024 convicted.

This is in stark contrast to other crimes where men make up the vast majority of offenders. This begs the question: why are so many more women being caught without a TV licence than men? The BBC glibly says ‘convictions are a matter for the courts’.

And Capita, which takes cases to court on behalf of the BBC, says that when its staff go to the homes of people suspected of not having a licence, they take statements from ‘any responsible adult’ present — regardless of age or gender.

So, perhaps, the answer is that women are most likely to be at home when enforcement officers call. However, others think there is another explanation.

Michael Shakespeare, from Kent, who challenged the BBC in a test case over the need to pay for a licence, thinks that women are more easily intimidated. He says: ‘A single mother or woman pensioner who is on their own probably won’t stand up to the officers when they knock on the door. They probably don’t know their rights either.’

In his own battle with the BBC, Mr Shakespeare ensured that all his equipment at home could not receive a live TV signal and, instead, he watched catch-up TV through the internet, for which you do not need a TV licence.

Even so, he was summoned to court for non-payment of his TV licence. In a landmark case, a judge found he had no case to answer.

Andrew Bridgen, a Tory MP who is campaigning to make non-payment of the TV licence a civil offence, also believes that the BBC is ‘unnecessarily criminalising’ women. He says: ‘They will prosecute whoever is at home when they call, and sadly that tends to be women.’

He points to official figures that show that half of all those jailed for non-payment of fines imposed for not having a TV licence, are women, yet only 4 per cent of the prison population are female.

The MP says that, in some cases, women who have felt so intimidated by enforcement officers have bought a licence when they don’t even own a TV.

The BBC certainly pursues the licence with some vigour. Official figures show that, perhaps, it has done so with a bit too much alacrity. For it has been forced to pay more than £100,000 in compensation to 2,500 people wrongly pursued for not having licences.

One man who claims to have been a victim of such techniques is Peter Troy, from County Durham, who complained that licensing staff had been unnecessarily aggressive when demanding he buy a licence for an empty home that had been left to him after his mother had died.
These unnecessary criminal proceedings clutter up the court system and cost taxpayers an extraordinary amount. Of course everybody should obey the law, but the punishment is totally disproportionate to the offence.
John O'Connell, director of Taxpayers’ Alliance

He says he almost bought a TV licence ‘in panic’ because he was so worried. ‘I was shaken up by the brazen way they could bully people in their own homes,’ he says.

Despite his explanation that no one lived at the property, he said threats of a summons for non- payment continued. He was eventually awarded £250 compensation after saying he would, in turn, sue the BBC for harassment.

So, what do magistrates who have to deal with all these cases think?

Malcolm Richardson, deputy chairman of the Magistrates’ Association, says that his members say criminal proceedings for failure to pay the TV licence fee is ‘too severe’. ‘It doesn’t serve the interests of justice to lock someone up for not paying. Like non-payment of utility bills, they should be dealt with by the civil law. We would certainly welcome the law being changed.’

John O’Connell, director of Taxpayers’ Alliance, says it is ‘stupid’ that non-payment of a TV licence is a crime.

‘These unnecessary criminal proceedings clutter up the court system and cost taxpayers an extraordinary amount. Of course everybody should obey the law, but the punishment is totally disproportionate to the offence. As new technologies change the way we watch television, the TV licence in its current state is unsustainable in the long term.’

Even a TV licensing spokesperson says the organisation would ‘prefer not to prosecute’ and that the licence is ‘good value at 40p a day’.

He adds: ‘We know some struggle financially, which is why we offer a range of payments methods, including small weekly cash instalments and why we work with more than 400 national and local organisations to offer help and advice.

‘But it is only right that we take action against persistent non-payers on behalf of those who do pay.’

Back in the courts, those women I spoke to after their appearance were contrite for having not paid for their TV licence. But they certainly did not believe their behaviour was criminal.