A PENSIONER has said she would rather go to jail than pay a fine imposed after she broke a condition not to contact a government minister.
Diane Rees had been made a subject of a community protection order to prevent her contacting UK Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds who is her local MP for the Torfaen constituency.
But at Newport Magistrates Court Rees pleaded guilty to breaching the order, which had been issued in April last year, by attending at the MP’s constituency office in Trosnant Street, Pontypool on February 13 this year and asking to speak with him.
Prosecutor Victoria Vasey told the court: “She went to the address and was banging on the door and demanding to speak to them. Officers were called and attended and Mrs Rees stated to officers she wanted to confront Mr Thomas-Symonds the MP whose building that was.”
Ms Vasey said it was a condition of the order not to cause harassment, alarm or distress and “not to contact any politician or Gwent Police in relation to certain court matters, including the MP.”
The prosecutor also confirmed there were no previous matters involving the defendant on record.
During the hearing Rees, of The Crescent, New Inn, Pontypool, said she didn’t want to pay a fine but would be willing to do community service or even go to jail.
She said: “I will do community service or go to jail but I don’t want to have a fine because I respect my money, that would upset me more than anything in the world.”
When the court clerk explained community service wasn’t a possible sentencing option open to the magistrates, the defendant told the court: “I know I’ve got to be punished but I’d rather have community service, maybe I could have to go around nursing homes, I love old people and could talk to them, rather than have a £100 fine.”
She also said her daughter had been found liable for a £16,000 overpayment of carer’s allowance and suggested she was unhappy with the Labour MP and said: “He has not done his duty as a politician, that’s all I’m about.”
The 66-year-old added she had breached the condition preventing contact on a number of occasions last year but said she hadn’t been arrested.
Magistrates said she was being sentenced on the basis of one breach and fined her £80 and also ordered she pay a £85 contribution to costs and £32 surcharge, making a total of £197 to be paid at a rate of £20 a month.
Rees replied “I’ve not had a fair trial” and also told the bench: “What about the failure of Nick Thomas –Symonds not looking after his constituents?” She added: “There’s no way on this earth I’m paying any money to Nick Thomas-Symonds”
The court hadn’t ordered any compensation or payment to Mr Thomas-Symonds personally.
Outside court, Rees told the Local Democracy Reporting Service she didn’t intend to pay the fine and would rather go to jail and said: “I won’t pay a fine.”
She said she had first approached her MP in 2020 for assistance after her daughter, who was a carer for her father, her late husband Gordon, who died in 2021, had been overpaid carer’s allowance due to a mistake over entitlement.
But she said she felt the MP had failed to offer any assistance and said she was also concerned that at least one other person she knew, who had approached his office for help, had also been dismissed and Rees felt the MPs office had instead been sending people to the Citizen’s Advice Bureau.