BBC legend Jeff Banks has accused the corporation of "harassment" after claiming he was sent five increasingly threatening letters following the cancellation of his TV licence.
Mr Banks, who is best known for creating and presenting the BBC’s iconic programme The Clothes Show, said he wrote to the broadcaster last August explaining he had stopped consuming the broadcaster's content "for a couple of years" and therefore would not be paying the licence fee.
He told GB News he received a "reasonable" reply acknowledging his home no longer required a licence but weeks later, he says the warnings started.
The star said the first in a series of letters warned he could face a £1,000 fine, with further notices escalating the tone.
The fifth, received last week, said he had been placed on a list meaning an inspector was "likely" to visit his property.
He told The People's Channel: "At that point I felt that was harassment.
"I told them, either you stop doing that and desist or I’ll have no alternative but to put it in the hands of my lawyers."
He explained: "I’m completely disenchanted with the BBC. I don’t think it any longer represents what Lord Reith set up in 1927. I think it’s wholly biased. I think it’s become very left wing. I think it’s riddled with scandals.
Jeff Banks hit out at the BBC saying that it is 'harrasment'
|GB NEWS
"I find it quite amazing that it employs 20,000 people, and I actually don’t think it represents what I want to buy."
He added: "If they want to exist in this day and age, we should actually be defunding the BBC.
"If they actually want to become a commercial organisation the they should take advertising, stand on their own two feet, compete with Sky, compete with Netflix, compete with all the other sports channels, Eurosport.
"But to actually think that they can continue with this bubble and that we as taxpayers, via the Government, have to fund it, I think they’re living in cloud cuckoo land. I think those days are over."
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Mr Banks said that he has become 'disenchanted' with the BBC
|GB NEWS
Mr Banks pointed to the BBC’s controversial Panorama episode involving Donald Trump as the “last straw”, arguing the programme had “flagrantly” misrepresented the US President.
The investigation sparked a storm after the BBC spliced clips editing footage to make it seem as if Mr Trump was inciting violence.
The broadcaster has since apologised, but the US President has vowed to sue the organisation, claiming it is his "obligation."
In an exclusive interview with GB News over the weekend, Mr Trump said: "I'm not looking to get into lawsuits, but I think I have an obligation to do it.
"This was so egregious. If you don't do it, you don't stop it from happening again with other people. I'd like to find out why they did it."
"I made a beautiful statement and made it into a not beautiful statement," he told GB News.
"You know, the word fake is one thing, but this is beyond fake. This is corrupt what they did."
The scandal has led to the resignations of director-general Tim Davie and head of news Deborah Turness.