Jailed pensioner vows to continue council tax battle

A 73-year-old woman jailed yesterday for refusing to meet a council tax demand of £53.71 vowed to continue to pay only what she thought fair. Sylvia Hardy, a retired social worker, said she would spend her seven days in prison catching up on her reading and plotting how to keep the campaign rolling.

As she became the first female pensioner to be jailed over an outstanding council tax bill, Hardy told magistrates in Exeter that unless bills were cut there would be an "uprising" of others who, like her, would go to jail rather than pay up.

"All that is left is to take direct action, whatever the consequences," she said. "Throughout history people have fought to change laws which are unjust and often the only way to do this is to break or ignore the law and accept the punishment."

Hardy will spend her week at Eastwood Park, Gloucestershire, a closed women's prison 80 miles from her home in Exeter. Campaigners are organising protests outside the prison as well as vigils in Devon.

The pensioner's extraordinary day -marked on her calendar with a dark cross and the single word "prison" - began before light when she invited journalists and television crews into her top floor flat in Exeter.

Hardy accepts that she can afford the £71 a month she is asked to pay as she has a net income of £277 a week. However she claims her council tax bills have risen much more quickly than her state and occupational pensions. "Pretty soon there will come a point when I can't afford to pay or my standard of living drops to the point where life isn't worthwhile," she said as she walked to court.

Hardy is still paying a percentage of her council tax bill which she thinks fair - in line with inflation - and not a penny more. "When I come out, I'll continue to pay what I believe is due."

She admitted she was apprehensive at the prospect of prison. "It's the fear of the unknown," she said. "But I'll try to make good use of my time, doing some reading and thinking of what to do next to get our message across."

Hardy knows a little of what to expect, having visited retired vicar Alfred Ridley, 71, from Towcester, Northamptonshire, who this month became the first council tax rebel to be jailed.

"He told me the worst moment was when the cell door shut behind him. I'm not looking forward to that."

Outside court she was met by around 50 supporters from afar afield as Buckinghamshire and Cornwall, some of them members of the IsItFair campaign, which claims 30,000 active members.

Inside she told the magistrates' clerk, Paul Vincent, that she still had no intention of paying what she owed and there was nothing the justices could say to persuade her.

She was allowed to read a statement in which she claimed: "I made a decision to withhold part of the council tax demanded because the increases during the past 10 years have risen by 50%. In one year alone the increase was 18.5% and in another 10%. My occupational pension increases by only 1.7% a year and the inflation rate by between 1% and 3%."

In an unfaltering voice she told the bench that there were other pensioners who would go to prison rather than pay "obscene council tax demands".

The magistrates activated a seven day sentence which they had suspended for 56 days to give her a last chance to pay.

The chairman of the bench, Lewis Crowden, told her: "If everyone paid their debts on the basis of what they thought as appropriate this country would descend into anarchy."

He added: "You may think you are a martyr but you are not. Most right-minded people would think you were a very foolish person."

As she was led away by three security guards, Albert Venison, chairman of the Devon Pensioners' Action Forum, shouted to the bench: "You are on a completely different planet, you people."

Another member of the public yelled: "Pompous nonsense".

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