A 70-year-old former teacher is preparing to go to jail after refusing to pay a fine for an anti-nuclear protest.

Grandmother Joan Meredith has until today to pay a £100 fine or she could face a week behind bars.

Magistrates in Alnwick, Northumberland, imposed the penalty after she took part in a demonstration at a nuclear base in Scotland. And if she does not pay up she has been warned she may be jailed for seven days.

But the grandmother of six, from Rook Moor, near Alnwick, said: "I've never been to prison but I am prepared to follow this through.

"I was fined £100 for sitting in the road while the Government spends £1,500m maintaining these weapons and threatening the whole planet with destruction.