South Gloucestershire | Archive | 2005 | September | 30
From the archive, first published Friday 30th Sep 2005.
A RETIRED social worker from Devon who refused to pay part of an increase in council tax has been released after only two days in a Falfield prison.
Sylvia Hardy, 73, from Exeter, became the first woman pensioner to be jailed in England by magistrates sitting in Exeter on Monday after missing the deadline to settle arrears of £53.71. She had been due to be released from Eastwood Park women's prison on Friday.
Magistrates said they had no choice but to send her to jail adding she should not be seen as "a martyr". She was then driven to Eastwood Park for women.
Chairman of the bench at Exeter Magistrates' Court, Louis Crowden, said: "If everyone paid their debts on the basis of what they thought appropriate this country would descend into anarchy. You may think you are a martyr but you are not."
Ms Hardy told the court: "Throughout history, people have fought to change laws which are unjust, and often the only way to do this is to break the law or ignore it and to accept the punishment.
"That is why I am appearing here today to accept my punishment for desperately trying to salvage my ever-reducing quality of life."
She spoke of other pensioners around the country who face jail for refusing to pay council tax rises.
"Many people believe that this tax is daylight robbery, so why are we victims rather than the perpetrators being sent to prison?"
But Ms Hardy was released from Eastwood Park prison on Wednesday morning after a mysterious donor paid her council tax arrears.
The payment was made by a "Mr Brown", so prison officials were duty-bound to release her.
However, the 73-year-old, from Exeter, said on her release that she was disappointed not to have served her full sentence.
Ms Hardy said: "The prison governor was hounded from the moment I got into prison by a mysterious Mr Brown, as he called himself.
"He left two contact numbers, one in Bristol and one in London, said he was a Christian and that he wanted to pay my debt."
© Newsquest Media Group 2008