A WOMAN who lost her baby only hours after being jailed threatened to take her own life as she buried her stillborn son yesterday.

As handcuffed Katrina Robinson stood at the graveside during baby Terence's funeral, she turned to her father, Leslie, and said: "I don't think I can do this jail sentence, dad. You will be burying me next."

The Northern Echo reported last week how the 20-year-old was heavily pregnant when she was jailed at Teesside Crown Court ten days ago, along with her boyfriend, Terry Rowley, for assaulting a 16-year-old girl.

But hours after being placed in a cell on her own at Durham's Low Newton Prison, she began experiencing pain and, soon after, the baby was stillborn, seven weeks prematurely.

Her mother, Sue Robinson, challenged the Home Office to let both her daughter and Rowley attend the funeral at Hartlepool's Stranton Cemetery yesterday morning, along with her own imprisoned son, John.

They were finally allowed to attend but, throughout the 30-minute service and the burial that followed, the three remained handcuffed as prison guards and police officers looked on.

Mrs Robinson, 41, of Thornton Street, Hartlepool, last night criticised both police and prison chiefs, saying her daughter was not even allowed to change into black clothes for the funeral. Instead, she had to attend the service in jeans and a red top.

"It was disgraceful," she said. "There were bobbies in the actual church, but the three of them were handcuffed to hell. They could not run anywhere.

"They would not even let my daughter wear the black clothes she had. She had to go in jeans. It was terrible.

"Now I'm worried for the safety of them both.

"I think they are going to harm themselves. I have already buried my grandbairn. I don't want to bury my daughter and son-in-law as well."

Mrs Robinson said she was so worried about them both that yesterday she called the prisons where they are being held to ask that they be put on 24-hour suicide watch.

She said: "I want to start a protest. I want my daughter out. I don't want to bury her."

Her daughter, of Thornton Road, and her boyfriend, of Chaloner Road, both Hartlepool, were each jailed for 15 months for affray for the attack.