A murder victim’s family has warned you cannot “rehabilitate psychos” as the country’s longest-serving female prisoner bids for freedom after 35 years.
Maria Pearson, who was jailed in 1987 for a knife attack on a love rival so brutal police at first thought they were dealing with a road hit-and-run, had a parole hearing last month.
But people close to her victim fear she might attack again.
Pearson, 66, was 31 when she was convicted of stabbing building society worker Janet Newton in 1986.
She was jealous Janet was in a relationship with her ex-husband, Malcolm, and two days after the couple got engaged she stalked Janet through the streets of hometown Hartlepool, Co Durham, before stabbing her 17 times.
She was found guilty of murder and sentenced to a minimum of 12 years.
The killer is now our longest-serving living female lag after doing 23 years more than this – just one shy of late serial child killer Myra Hindley’s 36 years.
Pearson’s last review, in July 2020, was rejected, partly due to poor behaviour. A 2004 stint in open jail ended after three months when she was accused of intimidation and bullying, and sent back to a closed jail. A bid in 2008 also failed.
Malcolm’s niece, Andrea Pearson, said: “Maria is an absolute psychopath who should never be released.
“Her release hasn’t been something we’ve been thinking about but it shouldn’t happen. It was horrible what happened to Janet. Her injuries were so bad that the police thought it was a hit and run at first.”
Pearson, a mother of three, was jailed under a controversial sentence known as Imprisonment for Public Protection, which was scrapped in 2011 as it only gave a minimum term and no maximum. But the change was not retrospective , so Pearson had no new legal rights.
A source said: “When Pearson was jailed, Three Men and a Baby was the biggest movie of the year and Rick Astley was number one in the pop charts. She’s been in for an incredibly long time.”
A Parole Board hearing was held last month, when extra checks including psychiatric reports were ordered.
Officials want to be sure she poses no danger to the public if released.
But Andrea, 56, does not believe Pearson will have changed – and fears she could harm her uncle.
She said: “I don’t think you can rehabilitate psychos and that’s what she was. She came across lovely but then she would flip like the flick of a switch. I saw that with my own eyes. She was obsessed with Malcolm. I’m not frightened of many people but I am of her.
“If she came back to Hartlepool I don’t think she would harm me or my family but she could harm Malcolm.”
In 2006, then Home Secretary John Reid rejected a Parole Board recommendation that Pearson be moved to an open prison and prepped for release.
Pearson said the decision was “politically motivated” as a response to public calls for murderers to serve longer sentences. But a judge said the killer was still “in denial”, showing limited sympathy for her victim.
The latest hearing is set to resume soon. A Parole Board spokesman said: “Reviews are undertaken thoroughly and with extreme care. Protecting the public is our number one priority.”
