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UK: Debtors' jail

01 March 1995

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Among people ordered to prison for failure to pay poll tax were an incontinent, wheelchair-bound 80-year-old woman, an epileptic 74-year-old man, and a cancer patient suffering from severe physical and mental handicaps following childhood meningitis, according to a new survey of poll tax debtors. Although many decisions were quashed by the High Court before committal orders were executed, many people served time in prison before being granted bail by the High Court, including a 72-year-old with a heart condition who had been treated for malnutrition. He lived in a nursing home, receiving a residents' allowance of £12 per week. Magistrates found him (and all those in the survey) guilty of "wilful refusal or culpable neglect" to pay, and he served 15 days of a 28-day sentence before being released by the High Court.

Lawyers are expecting the European Court of Human Rights to uphold the Commission decision that Stephen Benham's imprisonment was unlawful (see Europe: human rights roundup, in this issue). Another 40 cases have been lodged at Strasbourg. If the Court upholds the decision, the government will have to compensate a large number of people: up to 1,200 people have been jailed in 1994 for non-payment of poll tax, and the High Court has quashed over 100 committals as illegal.

"Punished for being poor", Legal Action, March 1995, p9; Independent, Guardian, 28.1.95.

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