A HAMPSHIRE father-of-five has been jailed for refusing to pay the Child Support Agency tens of thousands of pounds in maintenance payments.

Michael Cox was handed the 42-day prison term after telling the court he did not believe the CSA acted equally for both parents and that he was refusing to pay in protest at the way the agency handled cases where parents had split up.

The court heard he owed more than £60,000 in child support payments.

Southampton magistrates were told the 43-year-old, a lawyer, had originally been handed the suspended sentence in March this year following a dispute between Mr Cox and the CSA that had rumbled on for 12 years.

However yesterday magistrates decided to act on the sentence after Mr Cox, the legal advisor for the campaign group Fathers4Justice, admitted he was still refusing to pay the CSA's demands.

The court heard how the dispute between the agency and Mr Cox, from Hythe, had started in 1995 when he split up with his now ex-wife, with whom he had had three children.