A SELF-confessed white witch has been jailed for two years for giving drugs to a teenage girl which led to her death.

Sally Corkhill, 41, and her lover Lee Harrison, 31, originally from South Shore, Blackpool, appeared at Preston Crown Court following the death of Melissa Strickson, aged 13, from Darwen, Lancashire, in October last year.

The teenage girl died from a drugs overdose after taking refuge at the home of the self-styled white witch.

Corkhill, of Sudell Road, Darwen, pleaded guilty to four abduction charges and two of administering a controlled drug and received a total of two years. Harrison received nine months but was released immediately after serving eight months on remand.

Melissa, of Tythebarn Street, Darwen, died after taking a huge dose of co-proxamol. Hours earlier she had watched two of her three friends take half a tablet each after watching Corkhill slip five crushed tablets into Harrison's beer. The three had run away from home and sought refuge at Corkhill's house.

The four girls, three of whom cannot be named for legal reasons, turned up at Corkhill's house on October 8 last year and were allowed to stay overnight. Both the police and Melissa's mother visited the house the night before the teenager's death, but Corkhill denied they were there.

Judge Openshaw said: "I accept that when you invited the girls in there was never any sinister intention. But no attempt was made to contact the police or the parents of the girls.

"Your own undisciplined use of drink and drugs within your lifestyle attracted them. Strangers have no right to interfere in family matters by harbouring children and you even lied about not knowing where they were.

"It is right to say that Melissa helped herself to huge quantities of pills, but they were in an unlocked cupboard and the girls had seen you get them.

"Melissa's death is tragic and had she not stayed at your house she may well be alive now. To Melissa's family and friends, no sentence will ever be sufficient for their loss.

"I have no choice but to award a custodial sentence because they wanted to experiment with drugs and you irresponsibly indulged them. A community sentence would send out the wrong messages."

Outside court, Melissa's mother Sue Strickson led protests against the sentence, saying: "We need a public inquiry. A lot has gone wrong. If the police were so suspicious that the girls were hiding at Corkhill's house, why didn't they go back again? If they had, my daughter might well still be alive.

"She has run away 27 times from home yet it wasn't until last summer we actually had a social worker come round. Then we were just passed around from department to department. If they had been quicker, this might never have happened."