TV licence evasion accounts for 1 in 3 women’s offences

NEARLY a third of criminal convictions of women are for evading the TV licence fee, according to government figures.

This has led to claims that the BBC may be responsible for ‘indirect gender discrimination’.

Official figures show the likelihood of women being convicted over nonpayment of the licence was almost ten times more than men.

The Government is still looking at plans to decriminalise TV licence evasion, though there is speculation that enthusiasm for doing this is waning. The 84,000 offences by women for licence fee evasion represent 74 per cent of the total 114,000 convictions for this type of offence in 2019. This figure was a 3 per cent increase on 2015.

Victims’ commissioner Dame Vera Baird told The Daily Telegraph: ‘It is of serious concern that so many women are prosecuted for TV licence evasion. This report points to women who happen to be the person answering the door becoming the defendant.

‘It would be surprising if that were not indirect gender discrimination since women are far likelier, overall, than men to be at home during the day.’