London - Magistrates in Doncaster have been fined for sending two women, a frail 70-year-old grandmother and a mother of three, to prison for failing to pay local tax arrears. A High Court judge in London said both women had been wrongly jailed in their absence by the same bench of magistrates without proper investigations being conducted into their ability or willingness to pay their debts.
The judge took the rare step of making a legal costs order, thought to be in the region of £2,000 to £3,000, personally against the magistrates "because there were so many breaches of the appropriate principles" of law. Mrs Elizabeth Jack (70) was taken to New Hall women's prison in July 1998. Ms Alison Christison (31), a single parent who was taken to the same prison after she had taken her children to school, said she was given no proper opportunity to make arrangements for their care until in prison.