DH being taken to court by tv lincence people........help please

[Distel]

We had a visit from a tv licence man to tell us that our tv licence was out of date. We told him we were sorry, thought we would get a reminder letter but we would buy a licence at the weekend as we had the majority of the stamps needed but diddn't have the money to put the last £15 untill the weekend. He filled in a form to say he had been to visit and we thought this would be the end of it. Then on saturday we had a letter from the court saying we could be fined up to £1000 and dh had to attend court to explain why we diddn't have the licence.

Anyway, I suppose I was wondering if anyone had experience of anything similar to this or if anyone knows if there is some sort of system that maybe we would get a smaller fine as it is a first offence. Sorry this is rambled, I am a bit confused myself. If anyone can help I would be very grateful.

Have you got the license yet?

have you had no threatening reminder letters? we had one at work recently - what do they think we do all day, watch TV?

Yes we have the licence, the man came around in march and we got it 3 days after he had been.

No we diddn't even have a reminder letter or any letter saying buy one or else, diddn't realise it was out of date.

why don't you email them, there's a contact page on their website and ask them if he needs to attend - you can pay by direct debit in installments usually if that helps

It says on the court notice that if he doesn't go, the case will be heard as if he was there, but surely it looks abit better if he is there, otherwise the judge might think we don't even care enough to turn up and give an even bigger fine. Does that make sense?

Also, will this mean we have a CCJ?

How out of date was your license?

I do think he should turn up

How long didn't you have one

I think that all matters - why not set up a DD so it can't be forgotten in future