Really Worried - The TV Licence - Unnecessary Trial

Cornucopia

Thanks for that.

One of the issues I am looking into at the moment is whether TVL is making the necessary adjustments to its "services" in accordance with the Equality Act.

In this case, it would be a combination of PACE and the Equality Act, if your OH would more appropriately have been interviewed with a carer present.

I think if you can document the conditions you describe above with a Doctor's letter, this would be a good argument to put to TVL, with a view to them withdrawing the case.

Not_Another_Username

Thank you Cornucopia.

I am my wife's full time carer, so I don't know how that would stand up in a court with me living in the same house.

We have lots of correspondence and test results from the hospital which document her condition. Perhaps that will suffice?

prowla

Swipe wrote: »

All fair comments, but how would the BBC know if the IP address accessing their live TV streams belonged to an unlicensed premises?

As noted, the ISP has the details of the address which the external network address (presumably a NAT'd address: IP + port) is assigned to, the Beeb should have the internal IP address of the device in the house, and the TVL people have a list of the licensed addresses (and thus effectively a list of the non-licensed addresses).

Thus the only difficulty is in finding which device the given internal address is assigned to, and as noted that probably requires access to the device itself; that may be beyond the remit of TVL.

gjchester

Not_Another_Username wrote: »

I am my wife's full time carer, so I don't know how that would stand up in a court with me living in the same house.

Not trying to be too negative and also not wanting to pry too much but is your wife considered an "adult", ie capable of entering contracts and signing under her own volition?

If you have a legal charge over her then you may have a case that the TVL form is not valid but if (as I expect she is) an "adult" in the eyes of the law then her condition may not be seen as relevant.

If she is registered disabled and/or has any condition that may indicate she cannot comprehend the form and was not given help to fully understand the form she was signing then the equality act may come into play.
Remember though the equality act is about ensuring all people have the same access to information, not to set different standards for different groups of people.

gjchester

prowla wrote: »

Thus the only difficulty is in finding which device the given internal address is assigned to, and as noted that probably requires access to the device itself; that may be beyond the remit of TVL.

Maybe, a decent NAT/firewall won't reveal details of the internal devices in use enough to identify them. And even if it did most home routers don't keep much in the way of logs to go back to. It would be more like a speed camera where they cannot identify the driver clearly.

In that case the car's registered keeper is contacted, and they have to provide details of who was using the car at the time or face a fine for not doing so.

I would guess TVL will identify the house, and the house owner will either have to say who was using what device, or be the one fined.

brewerdave

gjchester wrote: »

Maybe, a decent NAT/firewall won't reveal details of the internal devices in use enough to identify them. And even if it did most home routers don't keep much in the way of logs to go back to. It would be more like a speed camera where they cannot identify the driver clearly.

In that case the car's registered keeper is contacted, and they have to provide details of who was using the car at the time or face a fine for not doing so.

I would guess TVL will identify the house, and the house owner will either have to say who was using what device, or be the one fined.

....but it just ain't going to happen especially if licence dodging becomes a civil rather than criminal offence !
The number of visits to the BBC site per day numbers in the millions - financially there is absolutely no justification for the manhours that would be needed to try to link IP addys with a physical address just to check whether the premises are licenced or not AFTER obtaining a Court order to force the ISP to release the details -it DOES happen with true criminal cases eg kiddiporn when the Police are heavily involved and has happened with outside rights holders - but that proved almost unenforceable even with the relatively few downloaders (remember the ACS Law fiasco?)
There HAS to be a new model of BBC financing!!Maybe the German model -every home must have one !!!!

Not_Another_Username

Hello gjchester.

The disabilities my wife has are not such that her mental state is that of a child's, if that's what you mean. The issue is memory and sometimes not being aware of her surroundings. Total mental blocks, generally on a daily basis, although her medication helps. She is in a wheelchair most of the time these days but, before this, she could be crossing a road and her mind would go blank, being completely unaware of her surroundings, traffic, etc. The medical profession call these epileptic attacks "Petit Mal".

I'm not sure it would be a good idea to bring this up in court as the TVL facts remain the same and it jut looks like we are giving feeble excuses.

As her full time Carer, I would only be seen to have 'allowed' her to watch live TV. i.e. not 'stopped' her and therefore part of the problem, if that makes sense. I think you'll see where I'm coming from. It's probably best that I sit quietly and accept whatever the outcome is.

Not_Another_Username

By the way, the forms from the TVL state that this is a CRIMINAL offence. What a cheek! It's not a criminal offence, is it?

Silk

Not_Another_Username wrote: »

By the way, the forms from the TVL state that this is a CRIMINAL offence. What a cheek! It's not a criminal offence, is it?

Yes but it's under review to change it

bazzyb

gjchester wrote: »

Maybe, a decent NAT/firewall won't reveal details of the internal devices in use enough to identify them. And even if it did most home routers don't keep much in the way of logs to go back to. It would be more like a speed camera where they cannot identify the driver clearly.

In that case the car's registered keeper is contacted, and they have to provide details of who was using the car at the time or face a fine for not doing so.

I would guess TVL will identify the house, and the house owner will either have to say who was using what device, or be the one fined.

All these posts about ISP's logs and whatnot are irrelevant to this thread and the OP as it seems the entire case for the prosecution relies on the visit by the TVL officer and signed confession, so this is what he needs advice on.