Fury of jailed council tax protester, 69, freed by well-wisher after a day

A pensioner jailed for three months for refusing to pay her council tax bill described herself as "devastated" last night after a benefactor paid the bill.

Josephine Rooney's protest against Derby city council, which she claimed had allowed her street to be overrun by drug dealers and prostitutes, won outraged support in the tabloid press. But her stint in jail terminated rather suddenly when Ed McGrath, whose wife described him as a "well-wisher" from Little Bookham in Surrey, paid the £798.97 debt.

Last night Mr McGrath said he had paid the bill in protest at the length of the sentence, though he has never met Ms Rooney, 69. "The council told me that she had had lots of offers to pay and declined them, but I decided to carry on and face the consequences."

Standing on the steps of her home in Hartington Street, Derby, Ms Rooney told reporters. "I was devastated. I had made it clear that I had the funds in a holding account. For somebody to do this, I felt they must be a council sympathiser."

Every day for the past five years Ms Rooney has bought a 28p loaf from her local supermarket, and gone home to her tall Victorian terrace house to prepare sandwiches for the drug users, homeless people and prostitutes who knock at her door, up to 30 times a day.

But her good neighbourliness was halted on Monday, when magistrates gave her a 90-day sentence for non-payment of council tax. It was the culmination of a lengthy and very public spat with the city council over its maintenance of the street where she lives, a once grand, tree-lined boulevard.

In May 2005 Ms Rooney highlighted the problems in a BBC documentary called Britain's Streets of Vice; last month she was pictured holding local press reports that 1,100 used needles had been dumped in the street over a single weekend.

Certainly the ambience in Hartington Street leaves something to be desired. Today several of its once tall, grand red brick houses sport steel grilles and stained chipboard. Many have been converted into cheap flats and bedsits. Prostitution has been common in the area and drug use remains highly visible, with scattered needles and abandoned wrappers.

But the story of the street is not a simple one of neglect and unchecked decline. Derby says it has spent £750,000 improving Hartington Street alone, including new roofs, improved street lighting and additional CCTV cameras, and millions more on the surrounding area.

Chris Williamson, the council leader, yesterday confessed to a certain exasperation with Ms Rooney, claiming she had refused to join a council consultation with residents, and refused to allow the erection of steel gates across the alleyways.

"We are doing everything we possibly can, and we are making progress," he said, adding that the council had issued 130 improvement notices to Hartington Street landlords and was attempting compulsory purchase of six houses.

A neighbour, Mark Holt, 43, said he had had no problems with drug users since he moved to the street four years ago and Ms Rooney's good intentions might be exacerbating the problem. "I have seen the druggies, of course, but the fact is they only come here because she's giving them sandwiches."

When she returned home last night after her brief incarceration, Ms Rooney might even have seen some small improvement. Aside from the reporters, the most activity on the street came from builders in one of the abandoned properties. Whether that will be enough for her to pay her bill for 2005/6, the subject of a separate dispute, remains to be seen.