THE daughter of Liverpool teddy-row teacher Gillian Gibbons today sent her a heartfelt message.

As the 54-year-old woke up in a filthy and overcrowded prison cell, an international internet campaign was launched to release the jailed teacher.

The Aigburth mother-of-two found herself at the centre of an international row after she let a class of six and seven-year-olds, at the Khartoum school where she taught, name a teddy bear Muhammad.

As diplomats worked throughout the night to free the former Liverpool deputy head, more than 500 people from across the world bombarded a social networking site calling for her 15 day prison term to be overturned.

Mrs Gibbons was locked up in Sudan yesterday and faces deportation from the African country when her sentence is served.

The former Dovecot deputy head was convicted of insulting Islam.

But Mrs Gibbons, who is separated from her headteacher husband Peter, was cleared of showing contempt for religious beliefs and inciting hatred.

She could have faced 40 lashes, a fine and a six-month jail term.

Nevertheless her sentence has appalled people from across the globe who used social networking sites to express their disgust.

Messages of support followed a poignant posting from Mrs Gibbons’s teacher-daughter, Jessica, 27.

She posted the simple words “I love you mum xxxxxx” on her mum’s profile page.

She also lists her mum as one of “her heroes” and adds: “She’s cool.”

Within hours of her sentence some 600 internet users had signed up to a “FREE GILLIAN GIBBONS, SHE'S DONE NOTHING WRONG” group on another global social networking site.

It states: “Gillian has done absolutely nothing wrong and should be freed immediately and reunited with her loved ones.”

Mrs Gibbons, who also has a 25-year-old son John, reveals on her profile page how: “I like to make the most out of life. I love to travel (this is my passion) and have seen some incredible sights”.

She also states how she planned to visit Ethiopia and Uganda in the summer and Jordan at Easter.

But now she will be on the first plane home and deported once her sentence in a women’s prison in the capital Khartoum is complete.

Riverside MP Louise Ellman today told ministers to step up the pressure to end what she called Mrs Gibbons’s and her family’s “ongoing nightmare”.

She said the sentence was “harsh and contrary to justice” and said feedback suggested the Sudanese prison was “a lot worse” than the cells where Mrs Gibbons spent five days before her trial.

Yesterday Foreign Secretary David Miliband summoned the Sudanese ambassador on two occasions to seek an explanation for the sentence.

He stressed he conveyed the UK’s opposition “in the strongest and most robust terms”.

And talks to try to free Mrs Gibbons, who also taught at Garston CofE primary school, were expected to continue today.

During yesterday’s trial it was disclosed Mrs Gibbons’s arrest was prompted by a secretary at Unity High School where she was teaching her class about animals and their habitats.

School director Robert Boulos told reporters Mrs Gibbons would only serve 10 days.

He said: “It’s a very fair verdict. She could have had six months and lashes and a fine, and she only got 15 days and deportation.”

He added that the school would not appeal against the decision although officials for the Khartoum Centre for Human Rights said an objection would be launched.