Legal proceedings no TV licence

If detector vans actually exist, then I would think someone living in the middle or back of of a dense and gated apartment block would appear to be safe.
Its' funny to me that if they exist, we never get to see them on TV in this age where everyone is interviewed in their job and gets 5 minuites of fame.



Are there any legal case studied available concerning TV license prosecutions and if any were successfully defended ?

If NTL (which I have currently) introduced cable broadband to my area, wouldnt I be able to say I only am in NTL and the 'snitched' database solely to use the internet and not to watch TV ? I presume I have the right also to pay for a service I dont use. And are there no data protection issues regarding NTL giving customer lists to the government or is the government universally entitled to this information by legislation also ?

Does Sky similarly give out information? Sky apparently are based abroad. I have been interested lately in the concept of buying a free to air satellite dish for less than 1 years NTL fees e.g here www.satellite.ie and watching TV for free thereby bypassing having to pay NTL whos fees seem to have increased a lot lately. In this case I would be on nobodys list. In theory I could presumably place the dish on the back of my house where no inspector could see it.
I wonder then what case the TV license inspector can make against me in such a hypothetical situation where no TV set of any description can ever be associated with me ?
 
Have a slightly different problem. I don't have (nor never have had) a television but the system is set up on the presumption that I am trying to avoid paying for it. Their calling card provides no place to state such so I rang them - after finally tracking down which office to ring, their website is appallingly uninformative - and was told to just write on the card that I didn't have a TV, sign it and send it back to them. Despite this I still got the menacing letter stating that I was being unco-operative, so I rang to explain that as I work quite far from home and am frequently abroad, I am not generally going to be at their beck and call but that if they truly wanted to get in I was happy to have someone there within ten minutes of their arriving at the door if they were willing to ring me and say they were outside but apparently this constitutes prior warning and they wouldn't agree. I am just waiting for them to send the next rude missive at this stage as the chances of them calling at a convenient time to me are vanishingly small!! It does all appear though to be working on the presumption of guilt with opportunity for clarification only on their terms which to me seems completely unfair.
 
BTW - if you are wondering the tv licence office for Carlow is in... Birr. Eminently sensible - especially as their website only lists the offices not the areas that they control!
 
They can't prosecute unless you have a tv and they must prove that in court. I wouldn't worry about them.
 
How do they detect an aerial? A lot of places have no visible aerial.
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Lots of things can act as an aerial. For example, wire cost hangers, or anything containing Iron (such as human blood)
 
umop3p!sdn said:
Lots of things can act as an aerial. For example, wire cost hangers, or anything containing Iron (such as human blood)
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A wonderful catch all clause.

You could imagine the scene in a district court somewhere in Ireland,
"I observed through the front door that the accused had a large quantity of metal coat hangers and from that observation I formed the opinion that he was using them as an aerial and therefore the accused was in possession on an unlicensed television".
 
They can't prosecute unless you have a tv and they must prove that in court. I wouldn't worry about them
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True and I don't, so I feel safe enough - it is more the attitude that irks than anything. Their correspondence is framed so that it feels you are being accused rather than being informed/queried.
 
bond-007 said:
They can't prosecute unless you have a tv and they must prove that in court. I wouldn't worry about them.
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Would having an aerial constitute proof do you think? I have a satellite on my roof - it's not connected to anything but I'm wondering should I go to the bother of taking it down in case a license inspector does call.
 
room305 said:
Would having an aerial constitute proof do you think? I have a satellite on my roof - it's not connected to anything but I'm wondering should I go to the bother of taking it down in case a license inspector does call.
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According to the post above, it looks like a dish is part of the 'apparatus' and so you need a licence?
 
CCOVICH said:
According to the post above, it looks like a dish is part of the 'apparatus' and so you need a licence?
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Yeah, I've been reading over the act and ridiculous as it sounds it could well be covered. So I should probably take it down.


Although their mention of any material capable of electro-magnetic energy of any wavelength up to 3 terahertz means there is very little you couldn't be prosecuted for under this act. My ears are capable of receiving sound signals in the 300 hertz to 20 kilohertz range for example.
 


So perhaps a ham radio enthusiast with a receiving antennae needs a TV license too ? or anyone who merely wants a perfect radio signal ? Thats nuts
 

A minor point, but sound is not electro-magnetic energy, so having a working pair of ears doesn't mean you need a license.....

By the way, the technology exists to detect if an (analog) TV is in use, and to pinpoint its position to a reasonable degree of accuracy. It's an entirely different matter whether that technology is actually in use for detecting license evaders (I personally very much doubt it, but I've no evidence on which to base that assumption).

Don't know about here, but in the UK there's a definite assumption that every household has a TV: someone called to my door when I was living there (with no TV) some years ago, looking for a license. They were quite agressive about what would happen to me if I didn't get one (I wouldn't allow them entry). I never followed it through though to see what would happen, as a few weeks later I bought a TV (and a license).
 
I didn't have a licence and about 3 years ago during the Champions League final, the bell rang - I had a few of the lads over for beer and pizza so assumed it was another showing up - answered the door and it was the tv licence guy. The telly was blasting from inside with the noise of a match in full flow and lads swinging out of cans. The guy didnt even ask me anything. Just told me i had 2 or 3 weeks to get a licence and off he went!
 

Sounds like the kind of guy who would knock on your door even if Ireland were winning the world cup
 
sign said:
So perhaps a ham radio enthusiast with a receiving antennae needs a TV license too ? or anyone who merely wants a perfect radio signal ? Thats nuts
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By definition of the act any radio whatsoever would be covered.
 
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