The first of a total of 65 television owners in Croydon will be facing magistrates tomorrow (Wednesday) charged with evading their TV licences.
Croydon Magistrates Court has set aside a courtroom for two days to get through the long list of licence dodgers who have been under surveillance for the last two months.
TV Licensing officers blitzed the borough just after Christmas to snare television cheats. And other dodgers are being warned that they could be next on the hit list.
A spokesman for TV Licensing admitted that residents had purposely been targeted during the new year to coincide with the influx of televisions given as Christmas presents.
She said: "We started blitzing Croydon residents after Christmas because we knew there had been a high number of sets bought and given as gifts.
"The fact that so many local people have been caught for evading their licence should be a stark warning to those who have yet to pay theirs."
TV Licensing caught a total of 820 dodgers in Croydon between March and December last year, compared with 267 in Bromley and 126 in Sutton.
The borough currently ranks 22nd in the TV Licensing southern League of Shame, a table of 339 boroughs in the south of England.
The spokesman added: "Evasion is down to an all time low of five per cent nation wide. It is very unfair that the honest majority of people in Croydon, who use TV and have a licence, should suffer the knowledge that some of their fellow citizens have brought the name of the area into disrepute."
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