British pensioner emigrates after council tax jail term

A female pensioner who has been jailed twice for refusing to pay council tax due to high levels of crime in her street has decided to emigrate.

Josephine Rooney, 75, has decided to move to Ireland, after giving up a decade-long fight to change her neighbourhood, reports the Daily Mail.

Rooney said she is “fed up” with syringes being left in her garden, as well as being harassed outside her home by drunks. She said she’s “accepted” that things won’t change and that she needs to “leave it behind”.

She added that she finds living in her area “menacing”, although adds that a small percentage of her neighbours are still “good people.” Her decision comes after ten years of struggling to get criminal and drug addicts removed from her street in Derby, her home for he last 26 years.

Her first stint in prison was in 2006, when she was sentenced to three months behind bars for refusing to pay her council tax, although was released after 24 hours after her bill was paid by a mystery benefactor. She received a further 28 days in 2008 for a £1,746 bill, which Derby City Council eventually gave up on.