A WOMAN was spared jail yesterday after a judge said there were exceptional reasons not to send her to prison.

Former heroin addict Shelley Hill, 26, was acquitted two years ago of the murder of homeless drug addict Robert Parkin, 29, who was beaten to death in a flat in Stockton.

The case against her at Teesside Crown Court collapsed when a witness said Hill had tried to rescue Mr Parkin from his torturers.

Yesterday, she appeared in court after she pleaded guilty to breaching a 120-hour community punishment order for handing jewellery stolen in a burglary, and for stealing a shopper's handbag.

Rod Hunt, in mitigation, told the judge that in the past, Hill felt she was better off in prison, but that she now had a furnished flat with her boyfriend and had weekend access to her daughter.

Hill told the court: "I want to apologise for the way I have behaved. I have been stupid over the years and I want to prove not only to the court, but to myself, that I deserve a chance."

Judge John Walford told her: "It seems to me that the pressure you must have been under, faced with a murder charge which it seems to me should never have been bro-ught, can only be imagined.

"While you deserve prison because of your record and your utter refusal to comply with the community punishment order, I am satisfied that there are sufficient exceptional circumstances to justify my suspending any prison sentence."

Hill, of Falkirk Street, Stockton, was given a nine-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, after she pleaded guilty to the breach and to the May 20 theft of the handbag and contents worth £25