A knife wielding robber has been spared a jail sentence because it has taken 19 months to bring her case to court.

Jessica Harper terrified one male and one female customer at the Spar shop in Heathfield, Newton Abbot, in November 2017 by demanding cash and brandishing a small knife.

She received a suspended sentence at Exeter Crown Court because it has taken so long to bring her to justice and she has transformed her life in the meantime.

The normal sentencing guideline for a knifepoint robbery is four years, but a judge at Exeter Crown Court halved it and suspended it because of the delay.

The delay was caused by the case being passed backwards and forwards between the police and the Crown Prosecution Service, who at one time recommended taking no action.

That decision was queried by the police because there was clear CCTV on which Harper could be seen with a knife. The victims were also very distressed by the attacks.

One was a young mother, who had moved to a Devon village because she wanted a safe place to bring up her children. She was so frightened that she went to live with her parents in Buckinghamshire.

The other made a victim statement saying he was frightened to go out at night.

Harper, aged 32, of Alexandra Gardens, Ventnor, Isle of Wight, admitted attempted robbery and possession of a knife in public.

She was jailed for two years, suspended for two years, and ordered to undergo a year’s drug rehabilitation by Recorder Mr Ignatius Hughes, QC.

He said:”The court is put in a difficult position when serious offences are committed but the prosecution takes so long to bring them to court. That passage of time eventually leaves the court in the position of not sentencing the same offender.

“For very obvious reasons, it is bound to have the effect on sentence in the defendant’s favour. It must in this case.”

The judge said the robbery was amateurish and that nothing was stolen, nobody injured, and the victims had not run away.

Miss Christine Hart, prosecuting, said the attempted robbery took place outside the shop in Battle Street, Heathfield, at 7.45 pm on November 24, 2017.

Harper approached a woman who was on her way into the shop and asked her the time before pulling out the knife. The victim took refuge in the store.

A second customer then arrived and Harper demanded money and prodded the knife into his back. He pushed her away and walked off.

The female victim made an impact statement saying the attack had destroyed her dream of bringing up her three sons in Heathfield.

She said:”You hear so much about knife crime but you never expect it in Devon. She invaded my safe place and my community. I was terrified to go out and always looking over shoulder after that.”

The male victim said:”When I had a knife in my back, I feared for my life and did not know if I was going to get stabbed or see my kids again.”

Mr Barry White, defending, said Harper was addicted to heroin and alcohol at the time of the offence and living with a fellow addict. She was injecting into her neck and groin and desperate for money to buy drugs.

She now has a new partner, who does not use drugs; has returned to be with her family on the Isle of Wight, and is working with the drug and alcohol addiction services and the probation service.

She is setting up her own business while helping as a charity volunteer and her life is utterly different from the one she was living in Devon.