I'll go to jail rather than pay tax, says pensioner

A pensioner was given a jail sentence yesterday for refusing to pay a £50 council tax bill because she says the tax is unjust.

Sylvia Hardy, 73, received a seven-day jail term suspended for 56 days from magistrates in Exeter, Devon.

She was told she would not have to go to prison if she paid the money she owed within eight weeks but Hardy said she would be back in August with her toothbrush and was ready to go straight to jail.

Hardy, a retired social worker, was greeted as a hero by 50 protesters from the Devon Pensioners Action Forum when she left court.

She has refused to pay any increase above the rise of just under 2% which she receives on her pension.

After the hearing Hardy said: "I will not pay and they will have to send me to prison. Next time I come here I will be bringing my toothbrush. I am not afraid of prison. I have been through worse things in my life.

"It will be worth the suffering if my case highlights the injustice of the council tax which affects people on low and fixed incomes very harshly."

Exeter city council had applied for Hardy to be sent to prison for wilful non payment of the council tax.

But she told the bench she was so strapped for cash that she has had to sell her car and take out a second mortgage on her two-bedroom flat.

She said increases in the council tax had been the last straw and she has decided to make a stand.

She attacked the council for "wasting" money on sculptures, chilled water at Devon county council and increasing allowances for councillors.

She said: "I believe for any authority to be allowed to demand such enormous sums of money regardless of a person's ability to pay, amounts to robbery.

"All other methods of promoting change have failed so I am left with the choice of withholding some of the council tax and to accept whatever the consequences may be. I feel I must make a stand in the interests of common justice."

Magistrate David Jarrett told her: "The court's position is that it must implement the law as it is. Therefore, since your statement has demonstrated a wilful refusal to pay, by your own admission we have no alternative but to make a suspended committal order.

"You have had your day in court and you have been very eloquent and made your point and we would urge you not to be the ultimate martyr."