FURIOUS friends and neighbours of a Chorley pensioner jailed for a third time for refusing to pay his council tax are planning to travel to Westminster to stage a demonstration.
George Thistleton, 73, of Moor Road, was sentenced to 28 days by Chorley Magistrates. His friends slammed the sentence as "disgusting" and vowed to campaign for his release. They intend holding their demo outside Chorley MP Lindsay Hoyle's office in London.
Ex-soldier Mr Thistleton refused to pay a £600 council tax bill after he felt his letters to Prime Minister Tony Blair and Mr Hoyle about expenditure of public money were being ignored. He is now serving his third sentence in two years at Preston Prison.
He first refused to pay up after council bosses denied him a home improvement grant. He was also angry about funding for asylum seekers.
Mr Thistleton is due to be released on Tuesday, February 11. Mr Hoyle said he will meet Mr Thistleton's representative this Friday. "I'm going to see what can be done. I want to know why somebody of this age has been jailed, but I do need the full facts before I can take up the issue," he said.
A Chorley Borough Council spokesman said under normal circumstances defaulters are referred to debt counsellors, but that in Mr Thistleton's case "It's not that he can't pay, it's that he won't pay."
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