THE heartbroken family of a prisoner who hanged herself just hours after being jailed have told how she was a "lovely girl" who was being bullied in jail.

The sister and mother of drug addict Rebecca Louise Turner, 22, have told the Evening Press the mother-of-two was prepared to serve her prison sentence, but took her life as a "cry for help".

They claim Rebecca, who was jailed on Monday and was found hanged in her cell at Low Newton Prison, near Durham, on Wednesday morning, was being victimised by a woman she knew from outside prison.

"She was quite prepared for the sentence, she packed all her suitcase and was ready for it, she was going to sort herself out in there," said her sister, Claire Wade, 27, of Acomb, York.

"But she went in and a woman immediately started on her, she wanted vengeance from outside," she said.

She said the prison was in the process of moving the other woman, but in the meantime Rebecca hanged herself in her cell.

"I think it was a cry for help, to try to get them to do it right away, because she just couldn't cope with it," she said.

"Everybody has enemies, but they are all in there to do their time and sort themselves out and come home, but now she won't be." Rebecca had a daughter, Lauren, six, who lives with her father, and a son, Jack, four, who has been adopted.

Rebecca's mother, Janet Wade, who lives off Hull Road, said: "She couldn't hack it any more, it wasn't the sentence, but the bullying.

"She's left two kids behind, and a family that loves her to bits.

"She was a lovely lass, she would have done anything for anybody, and had hundreds of friends who are all crying their eyes out.

"She got put away for opening the door for somebody who was living in her house selling drugs."

Rebecca, of Burton Stone Lane, was jailed for two years and three months at York Crown Court on Monday on two charges of being involved with the supply of crack cocaine last summer. Rebecca hanged herself using the belt from her coat, according to her family.

Claire said: "That should definitely have been taken off her, they aren't allowed belts in prison, and are classed as suicide risks for the first few days anyway, because their self-esteem is so low.

"She should have been watched, and looked after properly."

A spokesman for the prison service said: "After every death an internal investigation is conducted and there is also a coroner's investigation looking into the death and what lead up to it.

"It would be inappropriate to speculate what may or may not have happened before these take place."

Updated: 10:26 Friday, July 30, 2004