A BOLTON mother-of-six was celebrating today following a decision by a High Court judge to quash a 24-day jail sentence for non-payment of the poll tax.

Joan Partington, 44, of De Lacy Drive, Bolton, had already spent three days in custody after the sentence was passed by Leigh magistrates over arrears owed to Wigan Borough Council.

Mrs Partington maintained she had tried to keep up repayments on her arrears built up between 1991 and 1993. She said after she moved from Atherton to Bolton she was unaware that summonses had been sent to her previous address until her former husband told her a warrant had been issued for her arrest.

She spent one night in Risley and was referred to Drake Hall Open Prison in Staffordshire before being released on appeal.

Yesterday Mr Justice McPherson announced in open court that Leigh magistrates accepted that their decision to impose the sentence could not be allowed to stand.

And after the BEN broke the news, Mrs Partington said she intends to take legal action to claim compensation for distress caused as a result of her prison ordeal.

She said: "It is a huge weight off my mind because ever since I was released I've been half expecting the police to come and take me away again.

"I want compensation for what happened and any money I get will go on my children because it was absolute hell for them as well as me. Risley was a complete nightmare and there was no way I wanted to go through that again.

"My children were traumatised and when I came back my little girl, Nicola, would not let me out of her sight. Even now, when I go somewhere she wants to know exactly where I'm going in case I don't come back.

"It was awful at the time. How do you tell your six-year-old girl that her mummy is going away and doesn't know when she is coming back."

Mrs Partington said she had been given the sentence which was suspended while she paid off the arrears at £8 a week. She said she sent postal orders to the council but they were sent back and police came to her home to arrest her in January.

She was taken into custody the following day and her children were left in the care of her eldest son, who was 17 at the time.

Mrs Partington's lawyers had attacked the magistrate's decision as irrational and an improper use of the ultimate sanction against poll tax defaulters. The objective of jail was to coerce payment rather than punish, they claimed.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.