She has refused to acknowledge her guilt and attempted to appeal her conviction on the grounds that, although she did kill the woman, it was "an act of self-defence and provocation".
[4] At this time she was noted for having only served one year less than infamous female UK murderer Myra Hindley, who was never released from prison.
[2] Despite this, Maria immediately attempted to appeal the conviction in 1988, claiming she was not guilty because of her "mental and physical state of mind".
[2] She then changed her story and admitted killing Newton, but only as "an act of self-defence and provocation", and claimed in her appeal that she shouldn't be held responsible because she had post-natal depression and pre-menstrual tension.
[4][2] In 2006, when a judge rejected her complaints over her not being allowed to move to an open prison, he told her that she was still "in denial" and observed she showed little sympathy for the victim she had stabbed seventeen times.
[2] After her ninth rejection in 2023, the Ministry of Justice said that its records showed she was the longest-serving female prisoner in the UK.
[2] Similarly to previous attempts, her 2023 parole application was rejected in part because of poor behaviour, including being "abusive and aggressive" to staff, and it was heard that she had been "willing to resort to violence" to solve her problems at the time of the murder.