A couple who took their baby son with them on a seven-hour drinking session have narrowly escaped a jail sentence.
Alcoholics Mark and Petra Tyler, who were arrested in September after being refused entry to a pub, were each given a two-year probation order by magistrates in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.
The defendants, both of Reindeer Street, Mansfield, were also ordered to pay £60 costs after pleading guilty at a previous hearing to being drunk in charge of a child.
The Tylers, who both left court without comment, were detained after a publican called CCTV operators to check on their four-month-old son, Callum.
Mr Tyler, 47, and his 24-year-old wife planned to have a couple of drinks, but "one thing led to another" and they ended up drinking for seven hours, the court heard.
Sentencing the defendants, chairman of the bench Paul Richardson appeared to suggest that the couple may have been imprisoned if the maximum sentence for being drunk in charge of a child was longer than 30 days.
The magistrate said: "In this case we would have sent both of you to prison for what we feel is an extremely serious offence, where a young child was placed in danger.
"We accept, however, that the effect of that sentence would be to punish you for a very short time that would have no long-term benefit in terms of stopping your offending."
Imposing a 24-month community order with requirements for supervision and alcohol treatment on both parents, Mr Richardson warned them that they could "realistically expect" a custodial sentence if they breached it or committed further offences.
