The House of Lords Appeal of Jeffrey Rudd vs. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry is a very significant piece of case law for anyone accused of TV licence evasion.
The potency of the Rudd defence is exemplified by the fact that the BBC and TV Licensing do not want anyone to know about it, as illustrated below.
You can read a summary of the Rudd judgment here. We have previously discussed the Rudd judgment in an earlier article.
In a nutshell: For a defendant to be guilty of TV licence evasion, the prosecution (TV Licensing) must prove that a television receiver was actually used, and not merely that it was available for use.
It was a House of Lords Appeal, so sets a legally binding precedent on the proceedings of the Crown and Magistrates' Courts in similar cases.
In layman's terms the Rudd judgment means that the court has to consider any reasonable defence that TV receiving equipment, even thought it was present in an unlicensed property, was not actually being used for receiving TV programmes.
It therefore follows that TV Licensing has a weak case unless it actually catches a person in the act of receiving TV programmes without a valid TV licence.
Anyone caught with a TV receiver in their property could offer the perfectly valid defence that it wasn't in use, but was present for some non-licensable purpose (e.g. for listening to radio or playing video games). Alternatively they could offer the perfectly valid defence that the TV receiver wasn't in use during an unlicensed period, because the property was unoccupied at the time (e.g. they were on holiday or stopping with relatives).
Remember that TV Licensing goons have no automatic right of entry to any property. You can avoid the risk of having to rely on the Rudd defence by ignoring TV Licensing completely. Tell them nothing and never allow them access to your home.
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5 comments:
I came back to this country and rented a property in September 2018. I was inundated with demands to get a TV licence. I am over 75 and so requested a free licence. This took about 2 months to arrive and it said it was only valid until next December. They were, in my opinion, already trying to avoid providing me with a licence.
Hi,
I've just completed a 22 point case for the reasons I object to being "Forced To Pay" for a TV Licence. I, no doubt can come up with further justifiable reasons. To put it simply, I cannot agree to fund such a corrupt organization as the BBC - I basically don't watch it and can live without the BBC. If, as they claim, the BBC is so damn good then it's time to go 'Pay To View.' However, they realize that many would simply not pay for this corrupt, biased, indoctrinating propaganda service.
It's Time to scrap the licence as of now!
Everyone just ignore the TV licensers. Don't open doors, don't respond to them, don't get jobs affiliate with BBC. It's a dog shit company and deserves no funding. I don't even have a TV and haven't had one for years, but I'm not gonna make it easy for a bunch of harassing bastards, they need to understand they are not getting any money or cooperation from me. BBC more like big bitch company.
I read with interest that some 30 Millon Chinese watch BBC I player, and don't pay a license.
This alone should be enough to stop this medieval way of collecting taxis for this over rated, and over paid BBC.
I have one because I was so scared not to . Now that they have me I feeli can't get away
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