This father’s unfair TV licence conviction shows how more could be prosecuted

Standing behind a desk at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court in north London, Kwabena Bonsu looks stunned. He has just been convicted of a crime he insists he did not commit.

The offence? Not paying for a TV licence.

The 42-year-old unemployed father maintains it’s all a misunderstanding. He claims to only watch Netflix and YouTube, meaning he has no need for a licence because he doesn’t watch “live” TV.

Cases like this could become more common. Facing a funding crisis, the BBC wants the licence fee expanded, which may mean people would also have to pay the £180 annual charge to watch streaming services. That would simplify the complicated rules that have ensnared Bonsu – but would increase bills for millions of households and could lead to more prosecutions.

Some campaigners argue that licence fee evasion shouldn’t be a crime or believe the charge should be abolished altogether, saying that court enforcement is a waste of public resources and isn’t proportionate. Others defend the fee as the best way of funding the BBC’s public broadcasting without compromising its independence.

Right now, Bonsu isn’t concerned about that debate. He’s just shocked to have found himself on trial.

The only evidence against him is what he told a licensing officer months earlier on his doorstep in Rainham, east London, when he said he watches Sky. He was holding his baby at the time and says he was stressed by the officer’s questions. In fact, he doesn’t have a Sky account, only watching their news reports online.

Dressed smartly in a light blue jacket over a white shirt, he says his wife explained things when she got home on what he describes as “that fateful day”. He called the TV Licensing helpline and was reassured over the phone that things would be fine – but then he received a court summons.

Bonsu doesn’t have a lawyer, so he’s attempting to represent himself. Speaking hesitantly with an African accent, he struggles to comprehend the increasingly forceful cross examination by TV Licensing’s prosecutor.

He isn’t allowed to call his sole witness, his wife, because of an embarrassing procedural mistake by court staff. He’s also brought photos of their house to show it doesn’t have a Sky dish, but those are ignored because they were taken after the officer’s visit.

After deliberating in private for about half an hour, the two magistrates return to court 12. The presiding justice, Mr Eilenberg, addresses Bonsu sympathetically but says: “I’m afraid that we find you guilty.” He explains that the defendant’s “vague” and “inconsistent” account in court didn’t match what he said during the officer’s visit – brushing aside the argument that he was confused.

They waive a fine because he has no job and hand him a conditional discharge for 12 months, meaning he will only be punished if he commits another offence in the next year. In this respect, he is fortunate – people in other cases handled today must pay over £500.

However, Bonsu is still charged £126 for court costs and a victim surcharge. He’s warned that if he doesn’t pay the total sum, he could receive visits from bailiffs and be hauled back into court, potentially even imprisoned.

‘Nobody likes giving it in the neck to these people’

TV licensing is vital to the BBC’s finances. It brought in £3.84bn in 2024-25, accounting for 65 per cent of the corporation’s income – but the number of people paying the fee has fallen by nearly a tenth in the last eight years. The complex rules don’t help.

People must buy a licence if they watch or record conventional TV channels, use BBC iPlayer, or watch broadcasts on streaming services such as ITVX or All4. This is true no matter what service they use – including Freeview, Sky or Virgin Media – and whatever device they use, such as a phone or laptop.

However, about 3.6 million British households now claim they purely watch pre-recorded, on-demand shows via a platform like Netflix, Amazon Prime or Apple TV, meaning they don’t need to pay the fee.

Are all these people telling the truth? The BBC says 12.5 per cent of people who should have a licence fee are now evading the bill, up from about 7 per cent before the pandemic. Yet prosecutions have declined dramatically, by about 90 per cent, from nearly 200,000 cases per year in 2012 to less than 20,000 last year.

This is why BBC has proposed broadening what’s covered by the fee, to protect its income and avoid “managed decline”.

The vast majority of people who face legal action over TV licences are dealt with through paperwork these days, via the Single Justice Procedure, and are convicted without appearing in court. But when someone pleads not guilty, they are summoned for trials like this one in Islington.

Among the cases that have come to light recently are an 89-year-old widower who felt “bombarded and harrassed” by 53 warning letters from TV Licensing, a woman who had been living in hospital to care for her brain-damaged son, a pensioner struggling with dementia, and a woman grieving for her mother while suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome.

A source who works in the court system says that most defendants have “limited means” to pay the licence fee. They are typically unemployed and may be single parents. If they are living chaotic lives, paying the charge feels like “the least of their worries” until they receive a summons, the official says.

“Generally the courts are quite sympathetic to them. Nobody likes giving it in the neck to these people. They tend to receive modest fines with lenient repayment terms.”

Fines and charges that might seem small to some can still cause others significant difficulties. When Bonsu is asked to contribute £20 per month until his £126 is paid off, he looks worried and asks if it can be £10 instead. He explains that he does not receive benefits, relying purely on his wife’s income. They eventually settle on £15 monthly in negotiations that are painful to watch.

What shocks some campaigners, however, is how even the magistrates don’t seem to understand the laws they’re enforcing.

‘It wasn’t a fair trial’

Announcing that Bonsu is guilty, the presiding justice has a stern warning for him: “You will now have a criminal record.”

But this isn’t true. Licence fee evasion is a crime, but in most cases it does not result in a criminal record. This only happens if someone fails to pay a fine.

Penelope Gibbs, director of the campaign group Transform Justice, is shocked to hear what Bonsu has been told. “If he did have a criminal record, it would affect his life very profoundly,” she says. “If a convicted person walks out of that magistrates’ court thinking they have got a criminal record, when they go for their next job and they’re asked if they have a criminal record, they might say yes, when in fact they don’t.”

She is also outraged by an error made during his trial. Bonsu’s wife was allowed to sit at the back of the court, listening to the initial evidence – but staff then realised this meant she couldn’t testify, because she may have been influenced by what she had already heard.

“They should have double checked,” says Gibbs. “The case should have been thrown out… It wasn’t a fair trial.”

She believes Bonsu’s lack of a solicitor or barrister contributed to the mistake. Most defendants in licensing cases do not have a lawyer because legal aid is only available for imprisonable offences. This puts them at a “huge disadvantage” in court, says Gibbs.

Overall, she thinks Bonsu’s conviction is “rough justice” caused by the “confusing” licensing rules, on top of judicial mistakes. “People should pay for their TV licence, but I don’t think that not paying should be a criminal offence,” says Gibbs.

Rebecca Ryan, director of the campaign group Defund the BBC, argues that trials like this “go to the heart of why the TV licence system is becoming increasingly difficult to defend”.

She thinks it’s wrong that people “end up dragged through the courts, fined or criminalised over access to television content, often in situations involving confusion, vulnerability or genuine misunderstandings”.

Supporters of the BBC argue that its goal of delivering impartial news is more important than ever in an age of disinformation and echo chambers, while its investment in comedy, drama and documentaries enables British culture to not be swamped by American imports.

Others feel the BBC has expanded beyond its remit and say commercial rivals could perform many of its roles without a licence fee enforced by magistrates.

Ryan believes that forcing people who watch the likes of Apple TV or Disney Plus to pay the fee would be “completely unreasonable”, claiming that many people “no longer wish to fund the corporation”.

The judiciary does not comment on individual court cases. A spokesperson for TV Licensing also declines to discuss Bonsu’s trial, but says fees are collected “in a way that is efficient, appropriate, and proportionate. Our primary objective is to support people to stay correctly licensed, and prosecution is always a last resort.”

At the end of Bonsu’s trial, he and his wife slowly don their coats and walk to the courtroom door. He stops to ask a final question. Bonsu still doesn’t understand: why must he buy a licence now if he doesn’t watch live TV?

The prosecutor won’t take more questions.

The magistrate politely suggests the couple contact Citizens Advice. As they leave the room, he quietly asks the court’s legal adviser if Bonsu has a right to appeal.

If even magistrates don’t know rules like this on TV licensing cases, how are defendants expected to understand?

@robhastings.bsky.social