The BBC feeds its vanity by sending to jail women on low incomes

sir – Charles Moore (Comment, December 17 ) writes that most people charged with not paying the BBC licence fee are “poor women, often single mothers”.

Having sat as a magistrate for some years I was faced regularly with the moral dilemma of sentencing those very women and single mothers he talks about, invariably first on the list in our court.

I quickly came to the conclusion that it was morally unacceptable for me to sit in judgment on these cases and soon stood aside, as I was entitled to do.

As Mr Moore says, it is a poll tax, and feeds the excesses and vanities of those running the BBC, expenditure always rising to meet income.

There can be no justification for this way of funding a public body which sees itself above the need to constrain its spending and which behaves with little humility or understanding of the pain that it can cause. Timothy Bizzey

Romsey, Hampshire sir – I cannot agree more with Charles Moore regarding the hounding of persons who do not hold a TV licence.

From 1987 to 2004 I sat as a lay magistrate in both London and East Sussex. During that time I must have dealt with hundreds of persons prosecuted for not having a licence.

Most were those on a very low income who saw that food on the table was a priority. I doubt if in those 17 years there were half a dozen who refused to buy a licence.

Now, from June next year, my wife and I are to have our income reduced by £3 a week in order to finance the BBC. Perhaps its director general would like to recommend what we are to remove from our weekly food shop in order to pay the fee.

Derrick G Smith JP Bexhill-on-sea, East Sussex

sir – The BBC has teamed up with ITV to offer a streaming service of the “best” BBC and ITV dramas, comedies etc for a month’s free trial, followed by a subscription.

While I have no objection to ITV charging for its programmes, I feel that I have already paid for the BBC’S content and I should not be paying again. J A Yates

Taunton, Somerset

sir – If only the BBC were advert-free (Letters, December 18). Many of us in the building trades listen to the radio for eight or 10 hours a day and have to put up with the same adverts over and over again.

The fact that the ads are all for its own products make it no less annoying.

R J P Line

Brighton, East Sussex

sir – Is there the remotest chance that the BBC will support our country’s future trade negotiations with the EU?

It has already started batting for the other side.

I am sorry, but I detest the BBC. Les Nicks

Exeter, Devon