BRITAIN’S longest serving female prisoner is back behind bars just weeks after being released.
Killer Maria Pearson walked free in July after serving almost 40 years behind bars for stabbing love rival Janet Newton to death in 1986.
The Parole Board turned down nine previous bids for freedom but backed her release earlier this summer, despite warnings she may still pose a “high risk” of causing “serious harm”.
However, after only being freed in August, Pearson has now been returned to prison after breaching a condition in her licence.
Ms Newton’s sister Lynn said in response it was the “most positive update that myself and my family could have hoped for”.
She added she hopes the lag, now 70, will now spend the rest of her life behind bars.
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Lynn told TeessideLive: “I don’t believe she should have been released after the prison psychologist recommended an open prison first as she was highly likely to re offend.
“The parole board need to take accountability that they dismissed recommendations and made the wrong decision.
“A lesson needs to be learned. 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.”
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Mum-of-three Pearson, from Hartlepool, then 31, stabbed 23-year-old Ms Newton 17 times in a jealousy-fuelled attack.
She was given an IPP – Imprisonment for Public Protection – and was told she had to serve at least 12 years behind bars.
IPPs were a form of indeterminate sentence in which offenders were given a minimum jail tariff but no maximum.
They were scrapped in 2012 but not retrospectively.
Pearson’s minimum tariff expired in October 1998 but she was denied parole nine times.
In June it was revealed the Parole Board had found she had met the test for release, having been twice moved to an open prison before being returned to high security lock-ups.
The Sun has approached the Ministry of Justice for comment.