Britain's longest-serving prisoner could finally be freed

EXCLUSIVE: Britain’s longest-serving female prisoner who has been locked up since 1987 could finally be freed – 37 years after murdering her ex-boyfriend’s new partner in a jealous rage

  • EXCLUSIVE: Maria Pearson plunged a sheath knife 17 times into Janet Newton 
  • She was found guilty of murder in 1987 and ordered to serve a minimum 12-years

Britain’s longest-serving female prisoner – behind bars for 35-years for stabbing a love rival in 1986 – could finally be freed.

Maria Pearson, now 66, will be told within weeks if she is to be released from jail for the jealousy-fuelled murder of Janet Newton.

The mother-of-three plunged a sheath knife 17 times into building society worker Janet after stalking her in the street in Hartlepool.

She was found guilty of murder in 1987 and ordered to serve a minimum 12-years before being considered for parole.

The killer, aged 31 when she was caged, has served an extra 23-years past her minimum term.

Maria Pearson (pictured) was found guilty of murder in 1987 and ordered to serve a minimum 12-years before being considered for parole

Pearson plunged a sheath knife 17 times into building society worker Janet Newton (pictured) after stalking her in the street in Hartlepool

She has now served just one year less than that served by infamous child killer Myra Hindley before her death in 2002.

Hindley, ‘the most evil woman in Britain’, was never released for her part in the depraved and sadistic Moors murders between 1963 and 1965 when five children were slaughtered.

A Parole Board hearing was held on the 17th January 2023 for Pearson , but extra checks were ordered and it was adjourned.

These include psychiatric reports, the views of jail officials and plans to manage Pearson in the community.

Officials want to be sure that Pearson is no danger to society if she is recommended for release.

A source said: ‘Maria is the prison system’s forgotten inmate.

‘When jailed, Three Men and a Baby was the biggest movie of the year and Rick Astley was Number One.

Maria vows she is reformed, but nobody on the Parole Board wants to make a mistake.

‘They are being extra cautious.’

The savage slaying shocked the nation when it emerged Pearson had cold-bloodedly hunted down Janet.

Teeside Crown Court was told the knife penetrated 23 year-old Janet’s heart and she was left lying in a pool of blood in Grange Road, Hartlepool.

It happened two days after Janet and Pearson’s ex-lover became engaged.

Pearson was found guilty of murder in 1987 and ordered to serve a minimum 12-years before being considered for parole

Pearson, from Hartlepool, had married welder Malcolm Pearson bigamously in 1986 – days after the birth of their daughter Rachel.

Her ‘doomed’ relationship with Malcolm Pearson was ‘intense and stormy’ and their baby was taken into care after a serious incident at their home.

After the Pearsons split, Maria’s ex got together with Janet.

Consumed by jealousy, Maria stalked her rival, abused her in the street and even sent hate letters to Janet’s mum just three days before the attack.

Pearson was jailed under a controversial sentence known as an IPP – Imprisonment for Public Protection.

It was scrapped in 2011 as it only gave a minimum term to serve and no maximum sentence.

However, the change was not retrospective and Pearson had no new legal rights.

In 2006 the then Home Secretary, John Reid, rejected a Parole Board recommendation for Pearson to be moved to an open prison and prepared for release.

At the time, Pearson said the decision was ‘irrational’ and ‘politically motivated’ as a response to public calls for murderers to serve longer sentences.

But the judge said the killer was still ‘in denial’ showing limited sympathy for her victim.

A previous stint in an open jail, in 2004, had ended in failure after just three months when Pearson was accused of intimidation and bullying and sent back to a closed prison.

The Home Secretary said there were still major concerns over Pearson’s history of ‘manipulating’ prison staff to achieve her own ends.

She had shown a negative attitude to authority and an unresponsiveness to treatment and an unwillingness, or inability, to conform.

The judge rejected her claim of ‘political motivation.’

Rejecting her claim of ‘political motivation’, the judge said he could detect no legal flaw in the Secretary of State’s decision.

Judge Kay added at London’s High Court that, even had she been moved to open conditions, it was a matter of ‘pure speculation’ whether she would by now have been considered safe enough to release.

Pearson’s last review in July 2020 was rejected, partly because of her poor behaviour in prison.

The latest hearing is expected to recommence in ‘a few weeks.’

A Parole Board spokesperson said: ‘The oral hearing in the case of Maria Pearson has been adjourned.

‘Parole reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care. Protecting the public is our number one priority.’

The Ministry of Justice said it did not know of any female prisoner who had served longer than Pearson.

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