Where’s the justice? Heart-rending letters from vulnerable are ignored under 'broken' court system
Written appeals from the vulnerable and elderly who are charged with minor crimes are not routinely looked at by prosecutors in a “broken” secret justice system, an Evening Standard investigation has found.
Hundreds of thousands of cases a year are dealt with behind closed doors in the single justice procedure (SJP), a fast-track courts system used for controversial TV licence prosecutions as well as low-level offences like not paying road tax.
I know a chap who used to be a magistrate. He says entire court session were routinely taken up with TV licence prosecutions. It's been going on for years and the technology for a subscription service has been available for years.
As we know, the government response has been to allow the BBC to jack up the licence fee. Gary must be chuffed.
6 comments:
My brother was Chair of the local magistrates. When he retired about 10 years ago he said he was glad to go, as the system was completely failing.
These particular cases have an old theme. If true, those mitigating letters are indeed poignant. But some of them would be trying it on, gambling that every official is too stressed and under-resourced to check their veracity. Now, if we had a super unified state computing system that could cross-index a person's interactions with official agencies....
It's the devil and the deep blue sea. But yes, I'd defund Lineker as a priority.
Sam - some will be trying it on, many won't because more immediately important things crop up, that's inevitable with large numbers.
My impression is that a significant number of people pay the licence fee only because they are anxious about the possibility of aggressive TV licensing people coming to the door. To my mind the subscription technology has been there for years and BBC has no excuses left.
Anything which kicks the disgraceful BBC into touch will be a good thing.
So they have a 'team' which looks at vulnerable TV taxpayers? How much do they cost then?
Scrobs - I agree, it's a disgrace and the sooner it is kicked into touch the better.
The licence fee should be abolished but while it remains people should pay it if they want to watch the crap on TV. If you can't pay the fine, don't do the crime.
Vatsmith - I read somewhere that some people weigh up the fine versus the licence fee and risk the fine as likely to be the cheaper option.
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