In May 2008, prison campaigner and retired college lecturer, Pauline Campbell’s body was found in the cemetery where her daughter is buried.
Various sources close to Pauline Campbell reported that she had never gotten over the death of her daughter, Sarah Campbell, the youngest of six women who died at their own hands in 12 months at Styal Prison.
Young Campbell had been serving three years for the manslaughter of pensioner Amrit Bhandari, who’d suffered a heart attack on the street after being hassled for money by Campbell and a fellow addict.
When investigating her death, authorities found that a failure of duty to care at the jail led to her death. The jail had placed young Campbell in the segregation unit, and she’d been denied the mental health unit, which exacerbated her situation as the girl already had a record of self-harm and heroin addiction, and died from an overdose of anti-depressants a frightening less than 24 hours later after arriving at Styal Prison.
Upon hearing the news of her daughter Sarah’s death, Pauline Campbell turned from a retired college lecturer to a passionate prison reform campaigner as she blamed the prison system for not recognizing her daughter’s vulnerable state. She spent half a decade campaigning against the inhumane conditions in women’s jails.
Pauline Campbell’s Death Case Update
In a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions, Pauline Campbell died inches away from her daughter, Sarah Campbell’s grave, and for the same reasons.
As mentioned above, Pauline Campbell never got over her daughter’s death and put all the anger and sadness she was feeling into advocating for prison reform. However, just a week before her death, she had reported to the media that the relentless campaigning had begun draining her mental health.
To Campbell’s credit, in the five years between her daughter’s death and her own, she had arranged 28 protests where she would protest outside prison gates and attempt to stop vans bringing in new inmates to Styal prison by asking the driver to take them to safety.
She’d been arrested 15 times and charged with public order offenses on five occasions but never convicted.
Despite her mental health drain and the evocative nature of her death, no one could have suspected that Campbell would not only die inches from her daughter’s grave but also for the same reason- an overdose. Upon examining her corpse, coroner Nicholas Rheinberg ruled that Pauline Campbell committed suicide by taking a fatal dose of anti-depressants.
Pauline Campbell’s Daughter Sarah Campbell Committed Suicide At Styal Prison
Five years before Pauline Campbell’s death, her daughter, Sarah Campbell, had taken her own life at Styal Prison.
Not only did she die, but Campbell died hours after arriving at Styal Prison in Wilmslow. The young Campbell was always a troubled girl and struggled with depression since she was a schoolgirl, which led her to leave without qualifications despite having an above-average IQ.
She dreamed of going to art school from a young age, but this dream disintegrated after she started using heroin. Her addiction would lead her to make some bad decisions in life, and a particular one would end up costing her life.
Her heroin addiction would lead her to hassle Amrit Bhandari, a pensioner, to such an extent that he would die, and Sarah would be convicted to three years in Styal prison for the crime. Sarah Campbell’s case was unusual because the manslaughter conviction was based on harassment charges rather than physical violence.
Read more about prison and prison reform here: Why Is El Mencho Arrested Now? His Charges And Prison Sentence
When she arrived on Styal, the young Campbell was jailed on Friday, January 17, and asked to be sent to a vulnerable prisoners unit. Instead, the prison put her in a segregation unit, and the next day, Sarah Campbell swallowed 120 anti-depressants she’d stockpiled before she’d been locked up.
According to a coroner, Sarah Campbell’s death seemed more a cry for help than an intentional suicide. She was the youngest of six to die from a self-inflicted injury in a year at Styal.
Jean Craven, then duty governor at Styal, confessed that she had not read the document warns that Sarah Campbell was at risk of harming herself. Her blunder cost a young girl’s life.
Were Pauline Campbell And Sarah Campbell Related?
Pauline Campbell loved her daughter Sarah and went to great lengths to ensure no one else shared her fate.
Pauline Campbell had previously separated from Sarah Campbell’s father and lived alone. For a long period, Sarah was all she had, and despite the troubles Sarah found herself in after her death, Pauline dedicated everything she had and everything she was to campaigning and protesting her daughter’s death.
Pauline Campbell’s death prompted waves of tributes that celebrated her tenacity, will, and courageous voice.