A cross-party group of peers has written to the BBC urging it to end the threat of prosecution hanging over the heads of 750,000 over-75s yet to pay the TV licence fee.
In the letter, organised by former England international cricket ace Lord Botham, they accuse the BBC of harassing elderly viewers by sending repeated payment demands.
Botham used an earlier Telegraph column to slam the BBC's mistreatment of over-75s now eligible to pay the TV licence fee.
The letter addressed to the BBC Director General, Tim Davie, says: "It is beyond doubt that these payment demands are causing immense distress among the vulnerable. We recognise that this is not your objective and that some efforts have been made to mitigate the impact.
"However, much more needs to be done. In particular, there should be an explicit pledge that TV Licensing will never prosecute anyone over 75."
According to the peers, the BBC has "no moral justification" in sending threatening letters to over-75 households, citing the distress they have caused people like 96-year-old Second World War veteran Frank Ashleigh.
The letter continues: "The BBC has many friends who want it to survive, but the treatment of the over-75s is undermining that goodwill.
"It is for you to work with DCMS to resolve your long-term funding but the current situation, which is creating so much stress among our oldest citizens, is unacceptable."
The peers said "means testing is no answer for the extremely frail" because of the difficulty in dealing with onerous bureaucracy.
The BBC, as it regularly does, denied that the menacing tone of its TV Licensing letters constituted bullying or harassment.
A TV Licensing spokesman said that, of the 3.5 million over-75 TV licence applications tackled so far, "the vast majority have been dealt with quickly and without an issue".
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