THE mother of an 18-year-old woman who died at Cheshire's Styal Prison was arrested on Tuesday.
Pauline Campbell, from Malpas, was with a group of campaigners outside the gates of New Hall Prison in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, when two police officers arrested her for a breach of the peace.
She had been stood in front of a prison van with two other demonstrators, blocking the way. She was detained for about two hours then released without charge.
Since her daughter Sarah died the day after she arrived at Styal Prison, Mrs Campbell has been an ardent campaigner for prison reform and is a trustee of the Howard League for Penal Reform.
Sarah was found guilty, along with another woman, of the manslaughter of Amrit Bhandari, from Sealand, who was accosted in Chester city centre.
An inquest into the death of Sarah, who died in the care of Styal Prison on January 18, 2003, has been provisionally set for January 10, 2005.
Mrs Campbell has been campaigning for a full investigation into her daughter's death and criticised the Home Office for taking two years to set the inquest date.
Following her arrest, she said: 'I was arrested for breaching the peace at 3.15pm on Tuesday, and released without charge at about 5pm.
'My action was a justified protest as the only way of drawing attention to a greater wrong, the greater wrong being the shocking death toll of women prisoners who are supposed to be in the 'care' of HM Prison Service; also, the unacceptable imprisonment of large numbers of women, mostly mothers, and mostly convicted of non-violent offences.
'Those women who do not pose a threat to society should be dealt with by the use of community sentences.'
The demonstration was to highlight the death of Louise Davies, 32, at New Hall Prison on April 18.
