A FORMER wartime WAAF and nurse says she will risk prison rather than pay her council tax because she says it's grossly unfair to old people on single fixed incomes.

Mrs Beryl Pearce, aged 85, of Coldharbour Court, in Andover, has now been summonsed to appear at Andover Magistrates Court on 19 June after stopping her monthly direct debit of £74.24.

She has never been in court before but believes a mass non-payment protest by the elderly is the only way to make the Government listen to people who are suffering and dying in silence as a result of the injustice of the tax.

"For some people it is a question of heat or eat," said Mrs Pearce.

"I find paying the tax quite easy but one elderly woman I knew spent her days in the community centre and went home to bed after her tea.

"After her death they found that her home was riddled with damp because she was unable to heat the property."

Mrs Pearce hopes her appointment with the magistrates will lead to jail - an embarrassment for the Government if such an old person, who suffers from arthritis, is sent down.

"We have had petitions and protests in the past but the Government hasn't listened - so how else are we going to be heard?" she said.

She expects to be accompanied by supporters when she keeps her appointment at court. She has been to see MP Sir George Young but he has urged her to reconsider her plans. "You explained you had the resources to pay and I don't believe any useful purpose would be served by you adding to the jail population," the MP said in a letter setting out his position.

Mrs Pearce's council tax bill this year is £941.