Tax rebel sends threatened gnomes into hiding

(Reuters) A disabled council tax rebel has sent her collection of garden gnomes into hiding to avoid them being seized by local officials. The officials had threatened to take the gnomes from widow Gwynneth Lester in Fareham after she refused to pay up.

Mystech: I suppose you’re bound to get this sort of thing when you combine a rabid love of garden gnomes and 57% tax of every pound earned.

Lester, 57, refuses to pay the tax which finances local services because, she says, she gets nothing for it.

Her rebellion has landed her in court with a demand to pay up some 670 pounds — in cash or in kind — or face prison.

“Well, they won’t be taking the garden gnomes now because I have given them away,” she told Reuters on Monday. “In fact they won’t be getting anything that I have collected over the years because I have given it all away to keep it from them.”

Mystech: You can take our lives but you can NEVER take our gnomes!