A man impersonated his dead mother to make it seem as if she had responded to TV Licensing threatograms from the grave.
Despite being under no legal obligation to assist TV Licensing, David Brewis got in touch with the organisation to inform them of the death of his mother Dorothy in November 2017.
After a few months of respite, TV Licensing started sending threatograms to the empty property in July 2018. TV Licensing's caustic missives have arrived at the Durham property on a regular basis ever since.
Incensed at the menacing tone of the threatograms, David started to return them with a handwritten reply in the name of his late mother.
One returned threatogram has the note: "Dear Mr Bright, I'm afraid I am still dead and there is nobody living here.
"My son will let you know if that changes.
"Please leave him alone.
"Yours,
"The late Mrs Brewis"
The reply was aimed at Colin Bright, who purports to be a TV Licensing Enforcement Division Manager anywhere between Lands End and John O'Groats depending on the direction of the wind.
You can read several other replies in the Mirror article.
Chemistry teacher David said his replies were meant to be "tongue-in-cheek" as well as "slightly passive aggressive".
He said: "This is about the only field in modern life where we are asked to prove that you're not breaking the law by secretly watching TV.
"Normally the state is inaccessible, and when we want it, we can't easily reach it.
"But it has no problem intervening on relatively trivial matters such as this. They have no issue with sending threatening letters.
"These kind of letters, by the way, go to elderly people too. Can you imagine what kind of shock it would be to get a note like this at 70 or 80?
"There is a heavily implied presumption of guilt - over TV."
Just as you'd expect, TV Licensing had an excuse for its abysmal customer service.
A TV Licensing PR harlot said: "We have a duty to write to unoccupied properties after a period of time so we are able to establish whether it remains unoccupied or whether new residents are occupying the property - that's why these letters are not addressed to a named person.
"We are very sorry to Mr Brewis for any distress these letters may have caused and we have cancelled any further correspondence to this address for a further 12 months."
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1 comment:
"These kind of letters, by the way, go to elderly people too. Can you imagine what kind of shock it would be to get a note like this at 70 or 80?"
No shock at all in this household. When you're elderly it's nice to get a wee bit of post.
I'm now 77 and have had these 'soft' threats for seventeen years. 'Water off a duck's back', although I do agree that some elderly people could suffer 'alarm and distress'.
By the way, I thought it was a criminal offence to cause alarm and distress?
This can only get worse now they are scrapping free licences for us 'over 75s'.
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