TV licence

Well I thought yesterday couldn’t get any shittier… I was wrong. I came home to a court summons.

Last November, TV licensing came to the door asking after some woman who I can only presume lived there some time before me. Apparently she hadn’t paid her TV licence, he asked me for proof of who I was (I asked for ID first) and he told me he was within his rights to see my TV licence. Which was no problem at all, and thank god, in a fit of common sense when it first arrived, I had put it in the front room and could lay my hands on it. Unfortunately, he checked it and it was about 30 days out of date. I was absolutely horrified. I had no idea, and yes I should have had an idea, but the truth is, I paid and then just forgot about it…

Yesterday I came home to a court summons for ‘non-payment’ of TV licence and it’s really upset me. The implication is I am a criminal who deliberately defrauded the TV licensing people. Now at the end of the day, I f*cked up and yes, I’m going to have to pay a fine. But why the court summons?

I clearly thought my licence was in date otherwise I wouldn’t have cheerfully handed it over. And if I was trying to avoid detection we wouldn’t have opened the door in the first place! Ironically, I literally can’t get any channels because an aerial was never installed. Without my Sky I get nothing, so I pay twice for the BBC, ITV etc.

In all honesty, I’d just like it all to go away, because I feel guilty, like I’ve done something hideously wrong. (It also makes me really angry. Nice to know my slightly out of date licence warrants a court appearance, hours of staff time and a newly planted carbon off-setting forest in paperwork; heaven knows I wouldn’t want them to use court time to try and convict more rapists, for example). However, I have asked some advice from a legal friend and clearly I’m going to have to pay a fine (which should be enough to make me check the licence every month!) but it’s the rest of it that’s so unnecessary…

So there you have it readers. This blogger is now a criminal and she’s pretty bloody upset about it!