Mother in hospital with sick son convicted of breaching TV license after nephew watched BBC Match of the Day

A mother has been convicted of failing to pay a television license because her nephew was watching Match of the Day while she was in hospital caring for her sick baby.

The 31-year-old from Wolverhampton told TV Licensing she doesn’t have to pay the £169.50 annual fee as she only watches Netflix and YouTube.

However, she was taken to court and convicted because her visiting nephew logged into iPlayer on her television to watch Match of the Day.

The incident happened after she and her 15-month-old son went to hospital to be treated for an infection and liver disease, a court heard.

The mother pleaded guilty to “using a television receiver without a license” in a single justice trial and a judge gave her a conditional discharge with her paying £146 in court costs and fees. She is now facing criminal charges against her name.

The circumstances of the incident were set out in the mother’s compensation statement, which read: “I was in hospital with my 15-month-old son when the offense occurred. He has liver disease and had an infection at the time and we were in the hospital from August 13th to September 1st.

“My nephew had come to look at the flat at the weekend (August 31) using BBC iPlayer, which I didn’t know about until we visited from the TV licensee.

“I live in the apartment with my son and daughter and we usually only use Netflix and YouTube, so I didn’t think we needed a TV license.”

Prosecutions over television licenses are brought about by the Communications Act 2003, which states that a license is required by law from a person who owns a television and “knows or has reasonable grounds to know” that someone else intends to use it to watch live TV .

When the mother was interviewed on her doorstep by a television licensing officer in early September, a note was made about her television: “There were no channels on and no channels tuned.”

The officer was also told that her nephew was the one who had been watching BBC iPlayer during his visit.

Her case was prosecuted on an expedited basis with no chance of an out-of-court penalty because she had previously stated that she did not need a television license.

In a separate case, a recruitment consultant from Lytham St Annes was convicted of failing to pay for a TV license when her sister, who paid the annual fee, signed up to iPlayer at her home.

She told the court that her sister came to her home to look after her daughter and logged into the BBC app because “she assumed there would be no problems with it as she have a television license”.

“She confirmed that, as far as she remembers, she was asked if she could confirm that she had a TV license – and when she did, she replied “yes.”

“When the officer came to my address and this was explained to him, he confirmed that this was not the case about who the BBC account belonged to, but the fact that the app was being used on my premises.”

The 34-year-old woman said she apologized to the TV licensing agent and immediately signed up for a license, but added in her statement: “The only accounts I was signed in with on my TV were streaming services (Netflix and Disney Plus), and that’s it. I personally use it.”

The judge granted her an unconditional release with no costs or court fees, but she still received a criminal conviction.

The single justice process allows judges to decide low-quality criminal cases alone and behind closed doors on the basis of written evidence.

They have the authority to refer cases back to the prosecutor’s office once mitigation has been initiated. However, law enforcement agencies like TV License do not automatically see the letters due to the system’s expedited setup.

According to TV Licensing, legal action is always seen as a “last resort” after trying to get people to pay the license fee.