Cyprus-Forum.com

[Paul ZKTV]

Licence fee dodgers to be fined more if they have Sky
Satellite, cable and internet TV companies be made to pass details of their subscribers on to TV Licensing
Television viewers caught dodging their licence fee should face greater fines if they have been watching Sky or other subscription channels, magistrates were told yesterday.
Fines for failing to pay the licence fee – which can run up to £1,000 – may be doubled for viewers who have been meeting bills for the BBC’s competitor pay-TV services.
The White Paper by Culture Secretary John Whittingdale said satellite, cable and internet TV companies be made to pass details of their subscribers on to TV Licensing
It means many of the 180,000 people a year convicted by the courts for not paying the licence fee that funds the BBC may be subjected to heavier or doubled fines from this autumn.
New culpability factors, which will go into operation in the courts in the autumn if the proposals are approved, say that the crime will be considered more serious if the dodger has not tried to buy a licence; if they have tried to evade detection; and if they ‘had additional subscription television service.’
The effect will be that JPs will consider a licence dodger who is a Sky or Netflix subscriber to have committed a Category Two crime rather than the lesser Category Three offence of which they would currently be guilty.
A Category Three crime gets a Band A fine – typically calculated as half a week’s pay – but magistrates sentencing for a Category Two offence will be told to take a Band B fine as their starting point when considering the sentence.
Band B fines begin at three quarters of a week’s salary and run up to one and a quarter times the weekly pay of the offender.