A TAX dodger was caught hiding in a broom cupboard to avoid justice for stealing £7,724 from the public coffers.

Mark Barber was jailed for 83 days at West London Magistrates Court on June 23 after Hammersmith and Fulham Council tracked him down to his Shepherd's Bush flat earlier in the month.

The 44-year-old had not paid a penny in council tax since 2002 and was hunted down by council investigators after visiting his Surrey furniture store but finding it empty.

They visited his Lime Grove home to find him cowering in a cupboard behind a vacuum cleaner and an umbrella in a failed attempt to dodge capture.

Sentencing Barber, district judge David Simpson said he felt a prison sentence was the best deterrent to other people thinking of shunning their council tax bills.

Councillor Greg Smith, residents' service leader at the council, said: "Paying council tax is rarely on anyone’s list of favourite things to do but playing hide and seek and sheltering in a broom cupboard is not going to stop our investigators catching up with rogues like Mark Barber.

"We are a lean, efficient council and we are relentlessly pursuing the criminal minority who do not pay their bills so that the law-abiding majority do not have to shoulder more than their fair share.

"Custodial sentences like this prove that the courts take these matters seriously and should act as a warning to others in the same position."