‘‘Detector vans are a myth,’ the UKIP MEP Gerard Batten, a long-time campaigner against the licence fee, told me this week.
‘Prosecution [for not having a TV licence] depends on the accused being caught in the act of watching live broadcasts, or admitting to it. The non-existent threat of Detector Van evidence is just a means of getting suspects to incriminate themselves.’
Sceptics such as Batten point out there isn’t a single documented case in British legal history in which so-called ‘detection evidence’ from vans has been used to prosecute a licence fee evader.
This was, sheepishly, confirmed by the BBC in 2011 in response to a (hitherto unreported) Freedom of Information request.’
Read more: Are TV detector vans just a cunning con trick? For decades it's been claimed they trap licence cheats. In fact, they've never led to a single prosecution
