A GRANDMOTHER was ordered to remain in a courtroom yesterday as a punishment.

Joan Meredith, 78, was told to find a comfortable seat where she would have to spend the rest of the day.

She was before the court for refusing to pay a fine imposed after a peace protest at a naval base.

The grandmother was facing a week in jail after spurning her last chance to pay the £l00 fine, but magistrates decided to impose the unusual penalty instead.

Magistrates in Alnwick, Northumberland, passed a week-long jail term on the grandmother of six in June, but suspended the sentence to give her another chance to pay. But Mrs Meredith, of Rock Moor, near Alnwick, refused to pay because she did not believe her protest was morally wrong.

She took a packed bag with her to the magistrates' court ready to go to prison, but she did not need her extra clothes because magistrates ruled that a stay behind bars would accomplish nothing.

The court was told that the case would be closed as long as Mrs Meredith stayed in the courtroom until the end of the day.

Before the hearing, she said: "I am quite prepared to go to prison, it is nothing compared to the bigger picture."

The fine followed a demonstration at the Faslane naval base in Scotland, where the UK's Trident nuclear-armed submarines are based.