UK's longest-serving female prisoner denied parole for ninth time

28 February 2023 , 00:51

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Maria Pearson was jailed for life in 1987

The UK’s longest-serving female prisoner has been denied parole for a ninth time.

Maria Pearson, 66, stabbed her ex-boyfriend’s new partner Janet Newton to death in 1986 and was jailed for life for murder the following year.

Pearson, who was 31 at the time, plunged a sheath knife into her victim 17 times and had to serve a minimum of 11 years behind bars.

A Parole Board panel, which sat on April 13 2022 and January 17 2023, decided she was not fit for release because of the nature of the murder, how she has behaved in custody and evidence at the hearing.

It also ruled Pearson, from Hartlepool, Co Durham, is not fit to move to an open prison.

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A newspaper cutting reporting the murder in 1986 (Evening Gazette)

She has twice been moved to an open prison, only to be returned to a closed one.

The panel was told Pearson had been “willing to resort to violence” as a way of managing difficult situations in her life at the time of the murder.

In 2004 she was moved to an open prison but was later returned to a closed one due to concerns about her behaviour.

In 2014 she took part in a programme to help her with her decision-making but admitted to the parole panel that she had told facilitators “what she thought they wanted to hear”.

Janet Newton was stabbed 17 times after being stalked by Pearson (Evening Gazette)

She later declined to engage with some professional services which were supposed to help her, but in 2020 she decided she would engage with support to help people with complex behavioural problems.

That year the parole board decided she could move to an open prison, which she did in June 2021, but three months later she moved back to a closed jail.

Her release plan had included a requirement to live in designated accommodation as well as strict curbs on her contacts, movements and activities, which Pearson was reported to be unhappy with.

PA