TV Licence - will they get a warrant?

House_Martin

You re completely wrong Robisere on more than one count. Capita agents do have the powers to access a property with a warrant, something they do on a few occasions a year. Youtube can show you a couple of these.
If you still obstruct them they prosecute you for obstruction.
Mr Harry Snooks book documents many agencies which can turn up , without prior notice, and enter your home, eg Customs officers searching for contraband.
Even the Bees Act was used quite often to search for foreign bees.Sounds like an amusing book. I m going to get a copy if I can
Can we get it straight Robisere... I m a utility meter reader ! not a Capita employee I now work for MDS, previously G4S, before that Accuread . I post a TV licence reminders now and again, usually in big numbers only in the chavvy terraces and sink council estates where there could be as many as one in three do not buy a TV licence .
.99% of my job is simply accessing properties to inspect gas/electric meters.I ve only had a couple of people in 20 years daft enough to tell me I m trespassing, and they turned out to be fiddling the meters !
We definitely have powers of entry with a warrant and unlike the BBC we take out thousands of them out. Every Monday magistrates (NOT a High Court ! ) all around the UK are signing them every week . They usually never get contested. We need them to stop the vast army of energy thieve s and huge debtors ripping all the other consumers off.
I ve only been on a few over the years as back up on occasions. They leave it to senior management and their assistants. Capita do the same thing and leave a warrant entry to local team management.
They don t do too many, maybe only 15 a year , they don`t need to when they are trapping and bamboozling the truth out of the unsuspecting ones, who do not visit websites such as TVLR to gain the knowledge how to deal with Capita "officers " lol..Got to laugh at that because on my TV licence reminder I m suddenly an "officer "

HWW

Robisere wrote: »

When the TVL is finally abolished, what kind of work will people like House Martin have to find next?

Are there any Guard vacancies at Guantanamo Bay, I wonder?

The truth is that he and those like him, have no legal right to enter anyone's home, and this annoys him into ranting pointlessly on this forum. Can HM please enlighten us with a list of those 200 bodies that he insists do have a legal right to enter our homes? I do like reading imaginative fiction....

I have a TVL and I watch BBC TV. I partially agree with HM that the BBC has some wonderful programmes, but I do not include any form of televisual garbage like Come Dancing. I choose good drama, documentaries and wildlife programmes, all of which the BBC excels at producing: but they are not the only channel which does excel at those programmes. I also like some NOWTV, Netflix and similar, because I don't think the BBC is the only game in town, and because I have something that HM would like to see us all deprived of: a free choice and free speech.

HM, certainly hates free speech, he would shut down every website critical of the BBC, that also point out ways to obtain legally, alternatives to the BBC - if he had his way, very undemocratic attitude, perhaps worse.


Never mind, Capita is heading for Bankruptcy by the looks of the stock market - £1.32 at one point today, only a few years ago they were £12 a share.

HWW

HM, have you ever discovered a Cannabis farm with Meter tampered with, etc in the course of your duties?
Now I would strongly support you in bringing those to justice.

Cornucopia

House_Martin wrote: »

Capita agents do have the powers to access a property with a warrant, something they do on a few occasions a year.

Leaked figures from the BBC show c. 100 TVL Warrants for the entirety of England and Wales each year, and none in Scotland. There are 573 Parliamentary constituencies in England & Wales, so that figure means that each of them receives on average one TVL Warrant every 6 years.

If you still obstruct them they prosecute you for obstruction.

True. Which is ultimately why some people advocate using more elaborate legal measures against them to prevent them ever getting as far as considering a Warrant.

To be clear, though, a TVL Warrant and a Utilities Warrant are two quite different things (and both different to a Police warrant). The means to gain entry in each case, for example: Utilities - locksmith, Police - big red key, TVL - asking politely. TVL do not break down doors or enter using a locksmith (both for PR reasons and because there is no point in them entering empty premises).

They don t do too many, maybe only 15 a year , they don`t need to when they are trapping and bamboozling the truth out of the unsuspecting ones, who do not visit websites such as TVLR to gain the knowledge how to deal with Capita "officers "

It's hardly fair or morally right (and it's probably illegal) to "bamboozle" unsuspecting people into confessing to crimes. The basis of confession should be that it is freely given in a spirit of contrition with full knowledge of the consequences. You are right to point out that TVL are not following that principle. And it is wrong.

To reiterate advice on TVL interviews: there is a an absolute right to decline to be interviewed, there is a right to silence, there is a right to obtain legal advice, and if your English is poor, there is a right to have a free interpreter. I would recommend that anyone faced with a TVL interview under caution makes use of these rights, unless they are willing to confess to the crime in question. Arguing the case on its details makes very little sense to me, and it's beginning to become clear that some TVL staff do not have the necessary understanding of the technology to identify legal and illegal uses of AV equipment.

lol..Got to laugh at that because on my TV licence reminder I m suddenly an "officer "

TVL staff are not "officers" they are salespeople, and you have told us that you aren't TVL staff. Giving someone a fancy job title does not change what the job actually is.

Glen_Clark

Robisere wrote: »

the one featured by Glen Clark.

That was just a trailer before the Channel 4 programme was shown.
Channel 4 showed that lying Capita Assessor's manager praising him as a very good assessor - whilst she was removing official notices from the wall which informed claimants of their legal right to have the assesment tape recorded and expose Capita's lies.
I have seen working class scammers like garage mechanics and roofers exposed on the BBC - and rightly so. But all the Establishment scammers - Capita, MPs expense fiddles, Royal Family Members abusing their position, Lord Archer, Sir Jimmy Savile OBE KCSG etc have all been exposed by non-BBC media. .Considering the extended Royal Family are forced on to us without an election, I find the way the BBC sucks up to them (Royal Weddings etc) quite disgraceful. Since we are supposed to be a democracy, and they are supposed to be independent of the Establishment, they should give some coverage to Republicans.
I don't know whether the BBC shies away from exposing Establishment corruption because they are part of it, or because they only attack soft targets.
Either way I prefer to watch non BBC media and I don't see why I should have to pay ther BBC to watch other channels. :mad:

House_Martin

HWW wrote: »

HM, have you ever discovered a Cannabis farm with Meter tampered with, etc in the course of your duties?
Now I would strongly support you in bringing those to justice.

I certainly have.
Its my main hobby when I`m on the job along with catching gas and electric meter tampering.
. I am proud to be my areas most prolific finder of meter tampering and collect regular payments from British Gas, the only supplier with the moral backbone to stand up to the thieving scrotes
. I applaud Capita too for standing up to TV licence thieves .Whatever methods Capita employ , be it underhand or not is fine by me. They should get much tougher IMO and really target the owners of websites who aid and abet TV licence swindling .
! depends what you mean by "cannabis farm "
It can simply be a dude growing 2 or 3 plants in his cellar, which I would nt even report if he was nt fiddling the electric meter .The proper ones use the whole ( usually terraced )house, every room taken up with just a vietnamese gardener popping in around the back to keep the crop watered.Others will have a tent up in one room with say, 50 or 60 plants on the grow. The crop takes around 12 weeks, so they can have 4 a year.. Its big money
At approx £1000 a plant for best skunk its top business when they can have rooms full of them. The last one I caught was through listening carefully through the letterbox at night and hearing the fans in use and feeling the heat in a supposidly vacant terraced house.
Basic meter tampering is common enough but just like the Tv licence fiddles its the terraced inner city/towns and rough council estates who indulge.

Glen_Clark

House_Martin wrote: »

I certainly have. Its my main hobby ! depends what you mean by "cannabis farm "
It can simply be a dude growing 2 or 3 plants in his cellar, which I would nt even report if he was nt fiddling the electric meter .The proper ones use the whole ( usually terraced )house, every room taken up with just a vietnamese gardener popping in around the back to keep the crop watered.Others will have a tent up in one room with say, 50 or 60 plants on the grow. The crop takes around 12 weeks, so they can have 4 a year.. Its big money
At approx £1000 a plant for best skunk its top business when they can have rooms full of them. The last one I caught was through listening carefully through the letterbox at night and hearing the fans in use and feeling the heat in a supposidly vacant terraced house.
Basic meter tampering is common enough but just like the Tv licence fiddles its the terraced inner city/towns and rough council estates who indulge.

I'm sure most of them are worse than Capita, and I have nothing against you personally - except perhaps your assertion the BBC is the best in the world - you can't know that without watching all the world channels all the time. So you must have made it up, or repeated their propoganda, which doesn't inspire confidence
Just trying to explain why innocent people might not want to let Capita into their home.

Glen_Clark

This is a you tube video of TVL on the doorstep
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGDaV7jqM7M
Can anyone explain why they are so derermined not to give their name - and yet expect people to let them into their homes?

Cornucopia

From what I've seen two things are going on:-

1) They often open the conversation without identifying themselves. I think this is to try to gain as much info as possible before there's the possibility that the householder becomes more guarded when they know who the TVL person is. It is BBC policy that they should immediately identify themselves upon arrival, so in failing to do so, they are breaching their own policy.

There is also some policy around data protection in which it is unclear what the objective is.

2) The issue about presentation of ID to the camera is to do with their whole phobia of being filmed. Originally, they were told never to allow themselves to be filmed, and although this has changed, there is clearly still an issue. I think there are probably two reasons - personal safety and to deny the public knowledge of how a typical TVL visit works.

I'm not aware of ANY complete video of a typical TVL visit, and given that they make contact 800,000 times a year, this is quite extraordinary, and must reflect a concerted effort not to allow the process to be filmed. The suspicion must be that it would confirm that there are a number of legal flaws in what is being done.

Glen_Clark

House_Martin wrote: »

easily the best channel in the world , the BBC to keep on coming up with all the best TV in the UK.

Is this a joke?
Spending £28 million of our money on gagging orders for the victims of Sir Jimmy Savile KCSG OBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OonR06Givtg - and pulling programmes that would have exposed him earlier :mad: