Britain’s longest-serving female prisoner from Hartlepool back behind bars
Britain’s longest-serving female prisoner is back behind bars just weeks after being released.
Maria Pearson, 70, from Hartlepool, was jailed for life in 1987 for stabbing her ex-boyfriend’s new partner Janet Newton to death.
She was released in August this year after a Parole Board panel found she no longer posed a risk to the public.
But Pearson has been recalled to prison within weeks for breaching a condition of her licence.
Conditions of her release included living at a designated address, sticking to an electronically monitored tagged curfew for a year and to abide by restrictions put in place to avoid contact with the victim’s family.
It has not been confirmed which of these conditions she broke.
But a spokesperson for HM Prison and Probation Service said: “Prisoners released on licence are kept under tight supervision.
“As this case shows, we do not hesitate to put them straight back behind bars if they break the rules.”
Reacting to Pearson’s recall to jail, Ms Newton’s sister, Lynn Hamilton, is said to have told Teesside Live: “I hope with all my heart that she stops in prison until the day she dies, there is no place in society for her, she has proven that by being recalled only two weeks after release.”
Pearson was found guilty aged 31 of what the trial judge described as “the cruel and vicious” murder of her 23-year-old love rival.
She stabbed her ex-boyfriend’s new partner, Janet Newton, to death in Grange Road, Hartlepool in 1986.
In the Parole Board decision summary, officials said Pearson was in a bigamous relationship with her second husband at the time of the murder, remaining married to her first.
It was when her second partner met Ms Newton, and decided to annul their marriage, Pearson was left fearing that she would lose their home and custody of a child.
She tracked Ms Newton’s movements and routines, and fatally attacked her as she left her house.
The mother-of-three was told she would have to serve a minimum of 12 years behind bars, but she remained inside until August of this year.
It was after a Parole Board panel considered her case for the tenth time and said it was “satisfied that imprisonment was no longer necessary for the protection of the public”.