Council tax refusenik unrepentant

Council tax rebel Sylvia Hardy today said after her release from prison that she was prepared to go to jail again.

The 73-year-old was released last night after serving one day behind bars for failing to pay £53.71 of last year's council tax. She returned to her home in Exeter, Devon, after a man calling himself Mr Brown paid her outstanding bill.

The pensioner said today: "I am disappointed because I had made up my mind I was going to go the whole hog."

And she added: "I am not paying my full tax this year either. I have had my final demand.

"No doubt I will be getting a letter telling me I have got to go to court again. I will go to prison again if necessary," she said.

She said of her time in Eastwood Park prison, Gloucestershire: "The prison officers were very kind and looked after me very well.

"I was accepted by the inmates because they knew what I was in for."

Ms Hardy said she found the physical aspect of prison hard to cope with because the food was "appalling" and added: "The bed was hard and the pillow was like a rock."

She said she was in a lot of pain from her back during the time she was in prison.

Ms Hardy said today she hoped her imprisonment would take the pensioners' council tax reform campaign forward.

"Obviously the government will know what is going on, and I would hope now realise how desperate people are feeling in this country.

"And hopefully instead of just tinkering with the council tax they will actually abolish it and think again, and provide some other way of paying for the service - one that is related to the ability to pay and not the value of our homes," she added.

Ms Hardy had been due to be released from jail on Friday, until her mystery benefactor wiped out her debt.

Before she was jailed at Exeter magistrates court on Monday, the pensioner had declined a last-minute offer of payment, telephoned to the court minutes before her appearance.

Ms Hardy told the court she withheld part of her council tax because her bill had increased by 50% in the past decade.

"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," she said.

Last year, she did not go to jail for non-payment of council tax after an anonymous benefactor paid her outstanding bill.

Today Ms Hardy was back in her £130,000 two-bedroom top floor flat with distant views to the sea and across Exeter.

She has said she believed the tax rebels' campaign had played a part in the government's decision, announced last week, to shelve council tax revaluation.