A mum-of-two is disgusted after she was hit with a court order for failing to pay her TV licence.
Liza Evans pleaded guilty to using a colour TV without a licence after she was reported by an inspector. A colour TV licence costs £159 a year, while a black and white one is £53.50.
Ms Evans was ordered to pay a £60 fine, £120 in prosecution costs and a £34 victim services surcharge when she appeared at Cwmbran Magistrates' Court last week. The law requires that people who watch or record live TV must pay for a licence - as Wales Online reports.
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However, you do not need one if you only watch shows on catch-up, with the exception of BBC iPlayer. Ms Evans told Wales Online she only pleaded guilty because she had been warned of a £600 fine if convicted after a not guilty plea.
The 40-year-old said: "Live TV is s***. There is nothing to watch so we just stuck to Netflix, Youtube and Disney. Anything to do with the BBC, we didn't watch it.
"I am on benefits. I'm epileptic and my Disability Living Allowance had dropped quite a lot so I couldn't buy the licence for a year. The last thing I was thinking about was the TV licence — there were more serious things going on in my household.
"My kids had an Xbox for Christmas in 2020 and we could watch things through that, so we didn't need our Sky package anymore. We tried to cancel the Sky subscription but they said that because we'd signed an 18-month contract, we'd have to pay to cancel. So we left our Sky box but we didn't use it. Sky TV is just c**p."
An inspector reported Ms Evans in May 2021 after he knocked at her door and pointed out she still had a Sky subscription but had not paid for a licence for about a year. Ms Evans claims she made clear that the family only watched catch-up TV and arranged payments for a new licence that day to prevent further visits from TV Licensing.
Ms Evans "thought nothing more of it" until around three months ago when a letter informed her she was being prosecuted and she was ordered to court. Ms Evans added: "I thought, 'I'm going to have to plead guilty because I don't want to be stuck with a £600 fine.' I think it's disgusting."
She is now able to watch live TV because she has been paying for a licence since May 2021 but, apart from Queen Elizabeth II's funeral she cannot remember the last time she did. She added: "I watch shows like Sons of Anarchy and Grey's Anatomy — as my partner calls them, the 'unrealistic programmes'. He likes watching his dumpster diving videos on Youtube.
"It's been that long, I can't even remember the last time I watched a BBC series. I haven't watched EastEnders for years. All the BBC programmes have turned c**p. Now and again when the kids want to watch a film on the BBC I will let them, because I've got the TV licence back in place."
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