BBC Admits Detector Vans Never Used In Court: The Best Licence Fee Scare Videos

DID you know that the BBC has never – NEVER – used detector vans to prove to the courts that the accused has been watching the telly without a TV licence? Well, it is true. The TV Licensing blog has news:

The revealing Freedom of Information Act response came after the BBC u-turned on their earlier decision to withhold the information under the law enforcement exemptions of the 2000 Act.

In their revised response, issued after an internal review found in our favour, Beeb Kiwi lawyer Dan McGregor says the following:

“I can confirm that TVL has not, to date, used detection evidence in Court.

“You may be interested to understand why this is the situation. Under TVL’s current prosecution process the presentation of detection evidence in court is unnecessary. This is because TVL uses detection evidence when applying for search warrants. If, following service of the warrant an individual is found to be evading payment of the TV Licence, then the evidence obtained via the search warrant is used in court, not the detection evidence.

“It is worth noting that search warrants are only issued at the discretion of a magistrate (or sheriff in Scotland) in accordance with strict legal requirements. Detection evidence would be carefully considered by the magistrate (or sheriff in Scotland) during the warrant application process.”

“It does, of course, remain open to TVL to use detection evidence in court whenever it wishes in the future.”

Given the fact they haven’t used it so far, in the fifty-odd years the shit-scary (not) TV detector van has allegedly been in existence, it’s pretty unlikely they’ll be changing that habit.

Autonomous Mind wonders:

The question is, does the BBC refuse FOI requests by default? After all, how could the BBC justify refusing that FOI request in the first place? How could they possibly determine their exemptions from the Act applied to this?