One third of all women’s criminal convictions are for not having TV licence

BBC told to decriminalise non-payment of fee after claim it is guilty of ‘indirect gender discrimination’

TV LICENCE fee evasion accounts for nearly a third of women’s convictions, official figures reveal, prompting demands for its decriminalisation and warnings that the BBC could be guilty of “indirect gender discrimination”.

An increasing proportion of women end up with criminal records for nonpayment of the fee and are nearly 10 times more likely to be convicted for it than men, Ministry of Justice data revealed.

Women accounted for 74 per cent of the 114,000 convictions for licence fee evasion in 2019, up three per cent since 2015. These 84,000 offences represented 30 per cent of all convictions for women in that year compared with just four per cent of men’s.

The disclosure will fuel demands to decriminalise non- payment amid claims that plans to do so had stalled.

Dame Vera Baird QC, the victims’ commissioner, said she backed decriminalisation and believed it could be indirect gender discrimination as even the MOJ admitted the main reason so many women were prosecuted was because they were more likely to answer the door to licence fee inspectors.

However, Dame Vera added: “Whichever family member is prosecuted, it is an unnecessary conviction, serving only to criminalise poverty and disproportionately punish poorer families, with all the problems of a criminal record impeding the ability to work.”

Tory MP Peter Bone, a campaigner for decriminalisation, said: “At a stroke you could take 70 per cent of women out of the criminal justice system.”

Kate Paradine, chief executive of Women in Prison, said: “Debt related issues should not be criminalised. Even when you get down to all convictions and look at women in prison and arrests, the majority are there for very low level offences.”

The figures showed just one per cent of the almost 4,000 women currently behind bars were there for violent offences, while 89 per cent had committed a so-called minor crime, a third of which were theft including shoplifting.

On licence fee non payment, the MOJ report admitted: “A contributing factor is the greater availability of females when an enforcement officer visits the home.”

There was a similar gender divide and explanation over prosecutions for truancy, where women made up 71 per cent of the 19,600 convictions in 2019.

The MOJ has adopted a new strategy that women should not go to jail unless they have committed a serious crime. It is building five new residential women’s centres where offenders will get help with drug and alcohol problems, educational support and counselling instead of being locked up.