UK pensioner jailed in council tax protest

LONDON - A 69-year-old woman was jailed for three months today for refusing to pay her council tax in protest at the condition of her street.

Josephine Rooney was sentenced at Derby Magistrates Court after she failed to pay £800 ($2413.12) of council tax arrears.

Derby City Council said it was sorry that Rooney had been jailed but said it had a legal duty to collect the tax.

Rooney had refused to pay up as part of a campaign to secure improvements to Hartington Street in Derby, a once prosperous Victorian area now blighted by boarded up homes, drug addicts and prostitution.

"If going to prison is the price I have to pay to get this street sorted out, then it will be worth it," she told reporters earlier this year.

"Very close to me is a drugs squat and shoot-up gallery and it has been like that for two-and-a-half years." This month she won a £1,000 ($3015.82) government award for her work on her local residents' committee.

The council designated the area around Rooney's home a renewal area in 2002 and said it had since spent around £750,000 on improvements in her street.

"We are sorry that Miss Rooney has taken the route of protesting by not paying her council tax and that she has now been jailed," the council said in a statement.

"We don't like to see people jailed for non-payment."

- REUTERS