Update: TV Licensing at North Tyneside Magistrates

A few months ago we posted a field report on TV licence cases heard at North Tyneside Magistrates' Court.

Several of the cases heard in that earlier session were adjourned until last week's session, which took place on 19th September 2013. Completely out of the blue we have been contacted by someone who decided to attend last week's session as a follow up to our earlier post.

TV Licensing is a trading name used by companies contracted by the BBC to administer the collection of television licence fees and enforcement of the television licensing system. Capita Business Services Ltd is responsible for field operations, which includes the prosecution of alleged licence fee evaders.

Adee, probably not his really name, was particularly interested in case 9 in our earlier report. Briefly, the defendant in that case had been nabbed by TV Licensing as she visited someone else's unlicensed property. TV Licensing's policy is not to prosecute legitimate non-residents of an unlicensed property, which led us to question why they were apparently making an exception in her case.

It would appear that Capita has quietly withdrawn the case against that defendant, as the distinctive circumstances were not mentioned in last week's court session.

Adee also reports that members of court staff, no doubt mindful of our previous article, were very suspicious of his presence in court. Indeed, it would appear that one of the Justices took exception to his presence and sought advice about whether he was entitled to make notes from the public gallery.

He also confirms that Hagrid's evil twin sister, who was the Capita Court Presenter that featured back in July, was the star of this most recent courtroom charade.

We eagerly await any further updates and hope to publish them here in due course.

Edit (22/9/13): Adee's court report now published.