A WOMAN has been sent a court summons for an outstanding 1p of council tax.

Ann Gwilliams, 59, of Easington, east Durham, has been landed with an £11.01 bill for allegedly failing to pay all her council tax between May 2000 and March 2001.

But £11 of that is the cost of the court summons - with the outstanding council tax figure just 1p.

Miss Gwilliams, of Abingdon Road, said she could see the funny side of being sent a bill for 1p, but when she first opened the letter and saw "summons on complaint - Teesside Magistrates Court" at the top, it was no laughing matter.

She said: "I was shaking like a leaf. I'm on medication for high blood pressure as it is. I had absolutely no idea where this had come from."

She said that when living at a former address in Loftus, in east Cleveland, a few years ago, she was sent a bill for outstanding council tax of about £40.

She phoned the council asking for a breakdown of the cost but heard nothing until now.

Councillor Glyn Nightingale, Redcar and Cleveland Council's cabinet member for corporate resources, said he was "extremely sorry".

He said: "It is our fault and we have corrected it. It would be ridiculous for us to have court proceedings, but this discrepancy has unfortunately occurred through human error.

"Our normal processes would normally delete errors on such a small amount. We are reassessing those processes to ensure failsafe methods are in place to avoid a repeat in the future."