Jailed council tax rebel is moved 80 miles from home

The 75-year-old former soldier became Britain's oldest council tax convict this week after refusing to pay arrears of £1,358.50 in protest at soaring bills and his local authority 'wasting' money.

He was sentenced to 32 days at King's Lynn Magistrates Court in Norfolk and taken to Norwich prison but there were no cells available.

Instead, he was put in a Suffolk police cell overnight and moved 130 miles to Lincoln prison yesterday morning - more than two hours away from his family.

Mr Fitzmaurice's daughter, Sally Fitzmaurice, yesterday condemned his treatment as 'unbelievable'.

'He's a 75-year-old man who expected to get community service and now he's been shifted to Lincoln. How are we supposed to visit him there?' she said.

Mrs Fitzmaurice, who said her father had been transported with 'drug addicts and drunks', spoke of growing concern at the stress his wife Rita, 76, was suffering by being separated from him.

'My parents were burgled a few months ago and my mother is feeling quite vulnerable,' she said.

Mr Fitzmaurice was a warrant officer with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps for 22 years, serving in several countries including Egypt during the 1956 Suez Crisis. He left in 1971 to become a carpenter.

He told magistrates on Monday he opposed paying his council tax because pensioners on fixed incomes were unable to afford above-inflation rises.

But he decided to take action when he found out King's Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council had used taxpayers' money to pay the £23,000 legal bill of its leader, who was investigated and cleared of illegally extending an employee's contract.

Mr Fitzmaurice cancelled the direct debit for council tax on his £300,000 detached house in Heacham, Norfolk, in April - which made the whole year's payments due immediately.

The great-grandfather, who has high blood pressure, travelled 15 miles to King's Lynn for his hearing and is understood to have been kept in cells at the court after sentencing.

His family said he was put in a van later that day and taken on a two-hour circuitous route to Norwich prison 45 miles away, picking up prisoners from other courts en route.

But there was no room at the 824-prisoner capacity prison, which holds violent criminals and street robbers.

Checks revealed prisons in Peterborough and Chelmsford were also full so he was taken another 25 miles to Halesworth police station in Suffolk.

The following morning he was transported 130 miles on a three-hour trip to Lincoln, which holds up to 490 convicts including sex offenders and murders nearing the end of their sentence.

Home Secretary John Reid has come under fire for failing to deal with the overwhelmed prison system, which is 300 short of its 80,100 capacity at present.

Short-term measures have included placing convicts in police cells and allowing foreign prisoners to stay in escape-prone open prisons.

Henry Bellingham, the shadow minister for the Department of Constitutional Affairs, said: 'It is quite deplorable that a man of 75 is being moved around like this. The system is in meltdown.'

Corin Taylor, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said the prison service should be ashamed of 'treating an elderly man with such a lack of respect.'