“I still have panic attacks now.”

Claire (not her real name), a disabled mum in her 30s, never imagined she’d ever face criminal prosecution. But earlier this year, that’s what happened – for non-payment of her TV licence.

The stress took its toll on her mental and physical health.

“I don’t think I’m a criminal,” she says. “I have two kids I take to school every day, I try and pay my bills… I had to get anxiety tablets because I couldn’t sleep.”

As the BBC looks to broker a new funding deal with the government in the next three years, critics of the current licence fee model argue it is hard to justify how non-payment is still seen as serious enough to merit criminal prosecution.

The fee is currently a flat rate of £169.50 – poorest households pay as much as the richest.

Claire, who was fined £750 for non-payment, spoke to us anonymously about her experience of dealing with the fast-track system of processing cases.

The whole process, she says, was “terrifying”. At the time the enforcement officer knocked on her door, her partner had recently been jailed for domestic violence. He had previously taken control of her finances.

“All my money was in his account and I wasn’t getting access… from what I was aware he was paying the bills but it turned out he wasn’t,” she says.

The enforcement officer said he understood, Claire says. But a week later she received a letter to say she was going to be prosecuted.

Claire was told she would need paperwork to prove her situation, but didn’t have the money to send off for it. With 21 days to respond she felt she had to plead guilty or the costs might escalate.

“All you think is, ‘If I don’t pay this are they going to put me in prison?’.”

The licence fee has always been the BBC’s bread and butter – but given 500,000 households cancelled last year, there are questions over its sustainability. Other models such as Netflix, for example, successfully exist without needing the threat of prosecution.

Can the BBC still justify it?

Mary Marvel, head of policy at access-to-justice charity Law For Life, says “innocent people are feeling forced to plead otherwise” so their fine is reduced.

Under the Conservative government, various reviews looked into the pros and cons of decriminalising non-payment – ultimately concluding to keep the system as it is for now. Previously, the BBC said switching to a civil system would cost more than £1bn and lead to major cuts.

The Times newspaper recently claimed the current Labour government intends to scrap prosecutions over concerns women are being unfairly penalised. However, Sky News understands this is not the case.

Ahead of the BBC’s next charter review, all the government has officially said is that it isn’t ruling out making changes – and there will be consultation before making any decisions.

Almost three-quarters of 2023 prosecutions were women

Currently, the vast majority of prosecutions are dealt with via a system called the single justice procedure – a fast-track for relatively straightforward cases designed to fix the backlog of court delays.

Cases are processed by a single magistrate in private, and letters from defendants often go unread by prosecutors if an individual pleads guilty.

Almost 31,000 people were prosecuted for non-payment of the TV licence last year. Just over 73% were women.

Why the disparity? In 2023, a BBC review found that more than 60% of single-adult households are female, compared with less than 40% male. The review also found behavioural differences: women are more likely to be at home; more likely to open the door; and more likely to be the point of contact for bills and domestic admin.

Magistrates Association chief executive Tom Franklin says the TV Licensing authority should review pleas and mitigations before cases come before magistrates, giving an opportunity for them to be withdrawn if not in the public interest – “particularly for the most vulnerable in society”.

The government says the decision to prosecute “sits with TV Licensing”, but it is “keeping under review” its oversight and regulation of organisations using the single justice procedure.

A TV Licensing spokesperson said the authority would contact Claire and review the prosecution.

“We have the ability to overturn a conviction when provided with evidence that it was not in the public interest,” they said.

Significant reasons could include domestic violence, and mental and physical ill-health, the spokesperson said, adding that prosecution is always a “last resort”.

For now, Claire is incrementally using universal credit to pay back a fine she arguably shouldn’t have been prosecuted for in the first place.