DON'T GO TO JAIL

Ted and Eunice, both aged 77, have refused to pay more than a small proportion of their local taxes since 1990 as a protest against Barnsley‘s policy of counting Ted's £105 a week war disablement pension as income. Most other councils ignore war pensions when working out entitlement to help with council tax and rent. But, as we revealed in Saga Magazine, Barnsley is one of a small group of councils which count war pensions as income. As a result Ted and Eunice have to pay the full £494 a year council tax on their modest home. In most other parts of the country they would only have to pay about £100. They say Barnsley council‘s policy is unfair and penalises disabled war pensioners who have already paid a heavy price for serving their country. Ted was injured in Burma and spent three years in a Japanese prison camp.

As a result of his stand over five years Ted has built up a debt of £1499 and Eunice owes £330. The council tried to recover the debt using bailiffs but failed because their house and all the property in it belongs to their daughter. Finally, the Council went to court to get them committed to jail.

The hearing at Barnsley Magistrates Court on March 6 opened with the clerk asking them each in turn if they understood that the council ”was seeking your committal to prison for council tax debt•. They both said they did. It was their fifteenth court appearance but early in the proceedings stipendiary Rosenberg told the court ”Today is D-day•. One way or another he had to decide what to do about their debt.

He warned the Maddisons‘ solicitor, Stephen Moorhouse, that he would refuse to hear any arguments about whether Barnsley‘s policy was fair. But Mr Moorhouse insisted that the facts about Barnsley‘s policy were relevant. ”We say, and it‘s material to the court‘s consideration, that Barnsley‘s reasons are wholly unreasonable.•

Mr Rosenberg was swift to intervene ”I‘ll stop you there...• But Eunice was already on her feet. Speaking from the body of the court she said

”I‘ll say it then. Ask these councillors to go to France and visit the graves of the men, boys most of them, who gave their lives. And all these people here in this court today, who came back maimed, and they gave them a pension for that as compensation. The councillors never ought to lift their heads up again. They should go to church and ask for forgiveness.•

Her speech was as powerful as it was out of order. All that was left for her solicitor to do was refer the court to the ”distinguished• articles in Saga Magazine. ”I will hand in these articles now which explain it is not that Barnsley council has not the money it is that it chooses to spend it on other things. It is that which generates the passion and the heat.•

Mr Rosenberg made his decision quickly.

”I do find on the evidence that they have clearly wilfully refused [to pay their tax].•

But he then said he had no intention of cancelling the debt or of sending them to prison. ”The final option being just and reasonable I can dismiss the application made to me by the council and that I propose to do.•

So Ted and Eunice still owe the money but the council now has no further means of recovering it. They had won. The public gallery packed with other war veterans and relations burst into applause. Eunice was given flowers. Ted was glowing with happiness.

Before the hearing he had told me

”If it‘s prison it‘s prison. They‘re quite capable of anything. I‘m not worried I‘ve had plenty of practice.•

”It‘s great news. They‘ll have to write it off now. I‘m very very pleased. And Saga has been so important to us. It‘s our bible! Thank you.•

Barnsley council, which had applied for the committal to prison, claimed it was pleased with the outcome.

"We are glad they weren't sent to jail. The last step in the procedure is to ask for committal to prison. If we hadn‘t taken that step the district auditor could have said we hadn‘t been been chasing it hard enough. All the steps we can take to recover the money have been taken. We've exhausted it all. So there's nothing left."

April 1996

e-mail Paul Lewis on paul@deadline.demon.co.uk