A WOMAN who abandoned her baby in a railway station toilet cubicle has walked free from court after successfully arguing that sending her to jail was too strict a sentence.

Lisa Randall, 26, left her eight-month-old son in a cubicle at Bristol Temple Meads station. On Monday, Torquay Magistrates sentenced her to four months in prison for abandoning her child in a way which was likely to cause him "unnecessary suffering".

But yesterday at Exeter Crown Court, her defence argued she felt "threatened and intimidated" in prison and was afraid of the reaction from other inmates if they found out why she was jailed.

Judge Philip Wassall told Randall that while her decision to abandon her baby was a "wicked prioritisation" of her own needs and wishes over those of her child and her custodial sentence had been "justified", the experience of being locked up for four days would have been a salutary lesson. He then reduced the sentence to 100 days suspended for two years, a move welcomed by childcare experts.

The court heard Randall, of Sands Road, Paignton, moved to Torbay from Wales to live with her boyfriend, whom she had met on the Internet.

When social services visited her new home they found the accommodation was unsuitable for a child and had "misgivings" about her boyfriend, ordering her to return to South Wales to live with her grandmother or her child would be taken into care. It was on the train back to Wales on November 14 last year that she decided to abandon her child.

When she changed trains at Bristol Temple Meads just after 9pm, Randall pushed the buggy with her child in it to the ladies' toilets and left him, before catching a train back to Paignton. The baby was found 20 minutes later and Randall was tracked down to Paignton and arrested the following morning.

Andrew Cooper, for the defence, said she did not abandon her baby "willy nilly" but left him somewhere warm, where she believed he would be found by someone who would take care of him.

He said: "She made the decision to leave her child where he would be found and brought up by a better mother."

Coun Christine Scouler, children's champion for Torbay Council, said Randall's actions were "very unfortunate" but said she had been concerned to hear Randall had been jailed and believed the judge's decision to release her was the right one. She hoped the mother would now be offered counselling.

She said: "I feel perhaps had she sought help earlier from social services they could have helped her."

An NSPCC spokesman said: "We can't comment on this specific case as we were not involved.

"However, in general terms the NSPCC believes sentences for offences against children should be appropriate to the crimes committed and the harm caused to the children taking account of all the circumstances."