My mother, an 83-year-old widow, received a summons recently for apparently not paying her council tax.

Not being one for technology, she prefers to pay each month in the post office.

Being unaware of Brighton council’s demand for payment in the first six days of the month, my mother’s payments were always deemed as late.

Rather than calling and finding out what the problem was, its natural course of action was to send a summons and scare the wits out of a law-abiding citizen of Brighton of 40 years. Charming!

Stuart Blackburn, St Andrews Road, Worthing