A man who was convicted of child sex abuse walked free from court today because doctors said that he could die if he was sent to jail.

Robert Barker 64, from Redcar might suffer a fatal heart attack from the stress of being sent to prison, said the judge.

Barker was convicted by a jury of indecently assaulting a six-year-old girl in the 1970s.

Originally he was charged with rape and attempted rape. The rape charge was not proceeded with, and he was found not guilty of attempted rape.

The judge Recorder Martin Bethel QC made that he had been given several

medical reports indicating that Barker was in very poor health and suggesting that if he was subjected to the stress of a prison sentence the chances of him having a fatal heart attack would he increased.

Barker, who walks with a stick, had already suffered a heart attack, Teesside Crown Court was told. He had two trials because the jury in the first could not agree on a verdict.

The judge told him: "I do regard your state of health as being an exceptional circumstance and for that reason I am going to suspend the sentence for a period of two years."

Barker of Easson Road, Redcar, was given a 15 months jail sentence which was suspended for two years and he was ordered to register an a sex offender for ten years after he was found guilty of a specimen charge of indecent assault between January 1997 and January 1980.

The maximum sentence at the time was five years which has since been "rightly" increased, said the judge.