Pensioner chooses jail over council tax
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An 83-year-old pensioner said she was prepared to go to jail rather than comply with a liability order made by a court yesterday for non-payment of some of her council tax.
Elizabeth Winkfield, who lives alone in a bungalow at Westward Ho!, was the only one of 110 people summoned for non-payment who attended Barnstaple magistrates' court in Devon. She admitted she had no defence to failing to pay £98.80 of the £747.812 tax on her band C home and said: "I accept the facts."
It was explained to her that there were a number of methods of enforcing the order to pay the tax to council before the last resort of sending her to prison.
Ms Winkfield, who was also ordered to pay £10 costs, said outside the court: "I have been doing nothing and I will continue doing nothing." She said if the bailiffs turned up at her home she would not let them in.
She said she would be prepared to return to court for committal to prison.
Last year her council tax rose by 18 per cent but Ms Winkfield said she only paid 2.5 per cent more than the previous year because it seemed "a reasonable amount".
She lives on the basic state pension of £312 a month.