“I was behind bars for Christmas, new year and my birthday on 10 January,” said 78-year-old Gaie Delap, who was sent back to prison in December when the right-sized tag for her wrist could not be found.

The Just Stop Oil protester who had been released under Home Office detention curfew said she was “furious and frustrated” over her treatment and return to prison.

In her first interview since being released Delap said she is delighted to be reunited with her beloved garden but remains frustrated about the tagging failure.

“Who could believe they didn’t have a tag to fit me when that’s their job. The whole thing is extraordinarily inefficient and badly run.”

Delap, a Quaker and artist, took part in a protest climbing on to a gantry above the M25 in November 2022 to highlight the government’s decision to green light more than a hundred oil and gas licences.

When she took part in the climate protest she had hoped that she would not be sent to prison and said that she was new to climbing apart from an occasional apple tree.

She said that her return to prison despite having been deemed suitable for monitoring in the community with an electronic tag made her feel so low and isolated that she considered going on hunger strike.

She was sentenced to 20 months and after serving three and a half months at Peterborough prison was released under curfew last November.

However, when Ministry of Justice contractors came to fit her with an electronic wrist tag so she could be monitored in the community, she was told there was none available that fitted her wrist so she would have to return to prison.

“The police arrived to arrest me on December 20 (2024) and I had just 10 minutes to pack. I was behind bars for Christmas, new year and my birthday on 10 January. For my second period in prison I spent 41 days and 41 nights at Eastwood Park.”

She found some of her experiences to border on the absurd. When she first arrived at Peterborough, aged 77, she was asked to do a pregnancy test.

“I burst out laughing, I said I’m not going to do it, it’s an insult. They didn’t make me do it.”

She said that very little worked in prison as a result of chronic staff shortages, healthcare was poor, and education classes and exercise sessions were often cancelled.

“At the pharmacy at Peterborough one day a woman who had a colostomy asked for a new bag. She was told they didn’t have any and was given one of those little black plastic dog poo bags instead. Another woman was a wheelchair user who used incontinence pads. They didn’t have the right size for her so she was turned away without any.”

Delap had suffered a TIA – transient ischemic attack or mini-stroke – before going to prison but had to wait for more than two months for medication she needed.

“When I was a complete novice in prison the other women were very kind and showed me how things work. They were shocked and horrified when they found out I had been imprisoned for a climate protest. I think around 80% of the women I met should not have been in prison. Help with problems such as mental health, addiction and housing would have been more useful.”

She raised concerns about the practice of recall for the smallest misdemeanours such as being unavoidably a few minutes late for a probation appointment.

“There was one woman with mental health problems who was released but had such serious issues that she was unable to sort herself out after she left prison so spent two nights sleeping in a bus shelter before being recalled.”

She said the friendships she forged helped her get through both spells behind bars. “There was a lot of: ‘You alright babe? Yeah, you alright,’ even though none of us were really all right.”

She helped a young prisoner learn to read using Michael Rosen’s Sad Book.

“Michael facilitated the learning of reading in absentia,” she said.

Along with volunteering to help prisoners with literacy she did gardening, including litter picking, and brought leaves and plants she found outside back into her cell to draw.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The prisons this government inherited are not working for most women. Many female prisoners are victims and over half are mothers. That’s why the lord chancellor has launched a new Women’s Justice Board to reduce the number of women in prison, and better support those who must still be imprisoned.”

In response to Delap’s concerns about issues with healthcare at Peterborough an NHS spokesperson said: “All patients, regardless of location, deserve a good standard of care – however we know more needs to be done to expand access, which is why we’ve increased HMP Peterborough’s healthcare budget by over 20% over the year, while we also roll out better staff training to ensure women receive the same quality of care as they would in the community.”