Erika Sigvallius would like the world to know she does not own a television - especially the TV Licensing Authority.

The teacher, from Roddymoor, Crook, County Durham, says she is being plagued by TV licence detectives who simply do not believe it, and keep asking to search her home.

Ms Sigvallius, 35, a teacher of English as a foreign language, believes the TVLA should accept her word and objects to being "routinely called on to prove my innocence".

She said: "I have told them on numerous occasions that I do not possess a television. I have too full and busy a life to need one. But I have refused the TVLA permission to search my home, because I have nothing to hide. If I was some sort of criminal, gun-runner or drug dealer, even then the police would need a warrant to search my home.

"There is not a shred of evidence that I have committed any offence, yet I am routinely called on to prove my innocence by the TV Licensing Authority."

The TVLA letters began to arrive after Ms Sigvallius bought a screen to watch DVD films, which does not have a tuner to enable her to watch television.

She says: "I have written three letters to the TVLA since April, and made a telephone call, which I thought had resolved the issue, but last week I received yet another letter - this one saying that the TVLA had not heard from me and would be sending an 'enforcement officer' unless I denied possessing a television set.

"The TVLA says around two per cent of Britain's population does not own a television, so I am hardly unique."

She added: "The authority said they will keep on pestering me until I allow them in to my home. But I am not prepared to do that, as I am a private person and I have not done anything wrong.

"I had this argument two years ago, before they finally accepted I did not own a TV. Now it is starting over again."

Vanessa Wood, spokeswoman for TV Licensing, said: "We cannot discuss individual cases, but our policy to visit addresses that claim to have no television is in the interests of the honest majority of people who pay for a licence.

"Last year alone, over a third of the people who claimed not to have a television were found to be using a television when we checked the premises."

"A few minutes with our inquiry officers allows us to identify those who legitimately don't have a television and therefore do not need to be contacted for a number of years.

"The majority of people who claim they don't use television-receiving equipment are happy to let our inquiry officers make a pre-arranged visit at their convenience."