This Is Cheshire

Protest over 'death jail' at Styal

From the archive, first published Thursday 25th May 2006.

DEFIANT protesters blocked a van taking new inmates into Styal Prison as a memorial was held for the latest woman to kill herself there.

While a service for Valerie Hayes, aged 44, took place inside HMP Styal on Thursday, campaigners, family and friends publicly slammed the imprisonment of a vulnerable woman.

Mother of two, Mrs Hayes was the seventh prisoner to commit suicide in recent years.

Lead protester Pauline Campbell, whose 18-year-old daughter, Sarah died, at Styal in 2003, said: "Stopping vans bringing prisoners into Styal is symbolic - we are saying they must not bring women to this death jail and we will ask the driver to take them to a place of safety."

"It is a great injustice that women are being detained in prisons that cannot meet their human needs."

The chief inspector of prisons had published a report only 24 hours before the Warrington woman's hanged herself describing Styal's failures.

It said staff had not acted on eight out of 12 recommendations of women hurting or killing themselves.

Police were called two hours into the protest when campaigners formed a barricade to stop a prison van entering.

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