lizzy

I'll go to prison, says council tax woman rebel, 83

An 83-year-old woman said yesterday she would go to jail rather than pay her full council tax.

Elizabeth Winkfield left Barnstaple magistrates court in Devon to cheers from supporters as a pensioners' revolt against above-inflation council tax rises spread.


Miss Winkfield is one of 820 members of the Devon Pensioners' Action Forum, which was created after the county council increased its tax by 17.9 per cent last April.

She faced a bill of £787.81p for her band C bungalow in Westward Ho! on the north Devon coast. She held back £98.80, deciding that, in line with inflation, she was prepared to pay only 2.5 per cent more than the previous year.

Miss Winkfield, who was wearing a suit she made herself and a hat from a jumble sale, was ordered to pay the council £99 and £10 court costs.

As 30 members of the action forum waved banners in support after the hearing, she said: "Even if I was a millionaire I would not pay it.

"I might die before I pay. If they send me to prison, then that is what will happen. I paid the 2.5 per cent increase but I cannot afford any more. I don't like the idea of prison but I would put up with it."

Miss Winkworth was one of 110 people issued with liability orders by North Devon magistrates on behalf of Torridge district council, one of the authorities collecting the tax for the county council.

Albert Venison, 79, who is organising the revolt, said his campaign was ready to contest all 54 county council seats next year.

Condemning the liability orders as "diabolical and unsympathetic", he said: "Miss Winkfield did absolutely brilliantly.

"It is a sad reflection on our society when an 83-year-old woman is taken to court because she owes 98 quid to the council. She has worked hard all her life. God knows, she must have paid enough tax over the years."

Torridge district council said: "With all other local authorities, we have a statutory duty to collect the council tax and have no choice but to apply the legislation as it stands."