20 January 1948 – 15 May 2008
FRFI is deeply saddened by the death on 15 May of Pauline Campbell, who for the past five years had fought an unrelenting struggle to expose the brutal and inhumane treatment of women prisoners in Britain. Following the death in 2003 of her 18-year-old daughter Sarah – the youngest of six women who died in Styal that year – Pauline began a campaign of direct action to expose the prison system’s complete lack of care for vulnerable women. Between April 2004 and April 2008 every time a woman prisoner died, she staged a demonstration outside the prison. There were 28 demonstrations in all. RCG comrades regularly attended those at Styal, New Hall, Holloway and Durham prisons. Pauline was arrested 15 times and charged five times. The latest charges against her were recently dropped and we reprint below an article sent to FRFI just five days before her death, thanking readers for lobbying the CPS on her behalf.
Pauline was completely non-sectarian in her campaigning. She lobbied MPs, spoke to parliamentary committees, emailed journalists, and addressed conferences, marched with other relatives of people who had died in custody, demonstrated alongside peace campaigners, communists, anarchists and feminists. She wrote regularly for FRFI, as well as for many other publications.
click here to read her last letter to FRFI and Eric Alisons Comments
