Vicar serves 28 days over "illegal" Council Tax

A retired vicar is due to be released from prison after serving 28 days for not paying his council tax in full.

Magistrates sent the Rev Alfred Ridley, 71, of Towcester, Northants, to HMP Woodhill, a Category A lock-up near Milton Keynes, after he refused to hand over an 8.5% council tax rise, branding it "illegal".

Instead he and wife Una, 72, paid South Northamptonshire District Council a 2.5% increase, in line with inflation.

The resultant shortfall, together with bailiff and court costs, brought the total owed by the Ridleys to £691.

In July, a 28-day jail term was imposed on Ridley but Towcester magistrates suspended it for a month on the condition he paid up.

He refused to settle the debt and in September he was jailed.

It is thought Ridley is the first person in the UK to be sent to prison for withholding the full amount of his council tax.

However, council tax rebel Sylvia Hardy served time in prison last week for refusing to pay council tax arrears on her home.

The 73-year-old retired social worker from Exeter was given a seven-day prison sentence for refusing to pay an increase more than the rate of inflation on her tax bill.

But she was freed after less than two days after a mysterious donor paid the £53.71 council tax arrears on her home.