PEACE campaigner Robin Brookes says he is now prepared to pay the £500 of his taxes he withheld in protest against the Iraq war but only to a Government body that seeks to prevent conflict around the world.

Toy designer Mr Brookes, of Market Lavington, intends to turn up at the tax office in Swindon on Monday and hand over a cheque for £578.27, his tax liability plus interest and fines, made out to the Global Conflict Prevention Pool.

He expects the tax office will refuse to accept the cheque, because of who it is made out to, and says his campaign will carry on.

"I am not prepared to give up the fight just yet," said Mr Brookes.

"I don't know what will happen next, but whatever the next phase is, I will face it when it comes."

The Global Conflict Prevention Pool was set up in 2001 as a new approach to halting wars and was hailed by the Government as "a major innovation in joined-up government".

A Government statement claimed: "The purpose of the Pool is to bring together the resources of the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development to enable a more strategic approach to conflict reduction."

Mr Brookes, 49, is a Quaker and has the backing of the Society of Friends in Wiltshire for his anti-war stance.

He wrote to the Inspector of Taxes in Chippenham in March, when the Iraq conflict was at its height, saying he would not pay the segment of his tax liability which, he reckoned, would have gone to finance the war.

He was summoned before

Chippenham magistrates in October and told them he was exercising his right to conscientiously object by withholding his taxes. He was given three months to pay.

Mr Brookes said that he only found out recently about the work of the Global Conflict Prevention Pool.

He said he was astonished that British forces were being ordered into Iraq to oust the regime of Saddam Hussein at the same time as another branch of the Government was working to prevent war.

"I just find it outrageous that, when this Government is working on the one hand to prevent conflict around the world, it is actively supporting a completely unnecessary conflict in Iraq."

Since its establishment in April 2001, the Pool has been used to reduce conflict in the Balkans, Afghanistan and other world hot spots by developing better ethnic relations, democratic and accountable government, establishment of the rule of law, security sector reform and the protection of human rights.

Mr Brookes said the work of The Global Conflict Prevention Pool had come as a revelation to him.

"To find that our Government has already made a good start down the alternative route makes its participation in the invasion and bombing of Iraq even more incomprehensible," he said.

"Why did Tony Blair join in the war? What reason, even the most cynical, was there behind this?"