One of the most difficult decisions judges face is whether a criminal should be sent to jail. In some cases their crimes mean that a prison sentence is inevitable.
But in for others, judges have the discretion to take a step back and avoid sending them immediately to prison.
Here are some of the cases where judges faced that scenario and decided to spare defendants from being locked up.
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Woman avoids jail after police save baby
The judge said Kelly Nelis had avoided jail 'by the narrowest of margins'. She was in court after a baby had to be saved by police officers. The child was found unconscious, laid face down looking like a 'doll'.
Kelly Nelis, 40, admitted child cruelty after she locked herself in a room with the child. She could be heard shouting 'shut up', 'die' and 'f*** off'.
Shouting, banging and crashing could be heard as Nelis ripped a TV off the wall. It is not clear exactly how the child came to be injured, but vodka fuelled Nelis accepted 'full responsibility' for inflicting the injuries.
The baby could have died but was saved by quick-thinking police, the court heard. Sentencing, Judge Rachel Smith imposed a two-year suspended prison sentence, suspended for two years. She told Nelis: "I am satisfied you were in such a state of intoxication that you were unlikely to have foreseen the consequences of your actions.
"By the narrowest of margins I have determined it is not the case that appropriate punishment can only be achieved by immediate custody." She was ordered to complete 35 rehabilitation activity requirement days.
Man who terrorised ex
Lucas Roberts narrowly avoided jail after terrorising his ex-partner. Roberts, 23, complained about the woman visiting her mother while she was battling cancer, used the Find My iPhone app to check up on her and posted a 'highly intimate' video of her on Snapchat.
After meeting online and starting a relationship, Roberts quickly became controlling and abusive. She was subjected to a torrent of verbal abuse as well as violence over a three year period.
At one point she learned her mother had cancer. After returning from a visit to see her mum, Roberts complained she had been 'away for too long'.
"She wanted to visit her mother more often, but didn't do so for fear of annoying Roberts," prosecutors said. She broke up with Roberts and found a new man.
In the weeks after, Roberts began to harass his ex and her new partner, issuing threats and on one occasion turning up outside her house. Judge Timothy Smith said he felt able to avoid sending Roberts to jail, due to his 'immaturity' at the time and the rehabilitation work that could be offered by the probation service.
Roberts, of Blackpool, was sentenced to 20 months in prison, suspended for two years. He was ordered to complete the Building Better Relationships course, undertake 200 hours of unpaid work and pay his former partner £1,500 in compensation. He admitted offences of displaying controlling and coercive behaviour, putting a person in fear of violence by harassment and disclosing private sexual images with intent to cause distress.
Businesswoman who helped her drug dealing boyfriend commit crime
"Be under no illusions about how close you have come to prison today," Zain Sarfraz was told. The businesswoman was hauled before a judge for helping her drug dealer boyfriend commit crime, and then lying to police to cover for him after a drive-by shooting.
Sarfraz hired cars for her former partner, and gave him cash to buy drugs to sell on. Following a drive-by shooting in Cheetham Hill, in which her boyfriend was alleged to be involved, Sarfraz called police and claimed a Mercedes she had hired for him had been stolen.
Shots were fired at two men, who were seriously hurt in November 2019. At the time, Sarfraz didn't know the car had been involved in a shooting.
But in an interview with police two weeks later when she knew about the incident, she maintained her lie and claimed the car had been stolen. Sarfraz, who runs a successful make up brand, sometimes 'lambasted' him and urged him to get a legitimate job, but on other occasions she actively helped him, the court heard.
Sarfraz, of Hyde Park Road, Halifax, pleaded guilty to two counts of perverting the course of justice, and two counts of assisting the commission of an offence. "I don't take the view that you were blinded by him, or in any real way manipulated by him," Judge Nicholas Dean KC said.
"This was misplaced loyalty." Sarfraz was handed a two year prison sentence, suspended for two years, and was fined £5,000.
She had been previously remanded in prison for almost a month, and spent time observing a curfew which meant she'd served the equivalent of an 18 month prison sentence. The judge said jailing Sarfraz would be 'pointless'.
He said: "You have recognised your own stupidity and you have taken great steps to rehabilitate yourself." She was also ordered to complete 200 hours of unpaid work, and observe a curfew from 10pm to 7am for six months.
Woman who defrauded sick man out of thousands
Myriam Midi was warned that she'd be sent to prison if she didn't comply with a judge's orders. "You won't be able to rely on your child again," the judge told Midi, who was in court for defrauding a severely ill man out of thousands while acting as his carer, after conning her former teacher.
The court heard Midi's child was thought to be seriously ill with Strep A. Midi, now 23, was a teenager when she took £34,000 from a former primary school teacher and his wife, saying she would use it to pay for university in Bristol, before she tried to use the money to buy a house in Wigan.
Just months after she took more than £16,000, and unsuccessfully tried to get £6,000 more, from a man with severe motor neurone disease (MND). Midi told him she was in love with him and needed to pay for family members' funerals and for treatment for a brain tumour, none of which was true.
The judge described Midi as a 'persistent liar willing to exploit others for your own selfish and greedy needs'. "This sort of offending in almost every case would result in you losing your liberty," Midi was told. Judge John Potter said there were 'wholly exceptional characteristics' in that 'just about justify' Midi not being sent to custody.
Midi, of Pretoria Road, Oldham, was pleaded guilty to six counts of fraud and was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for two years.
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