Honestly my biggest takeaway from this is I'm surprised that narrowboats pay council tax at all. (If anyone's interested, it's because it's moored and using the marina bungalow as a contract address. Otherwise there would be no tax to pay).

As for Polanski, from what I can tell, he's not trying to spin it, deny it or avoid it. The amount of money he should have paid is relatively small (literally the lowest band), and he's agreed to pay it plus the penalty.