A MOTHER-of-three who assisted those who robbed a corner shop in Radcliffe with baseball bats and held onto drugs for others to supply has been spared jail.

Manchester Crown Court heard a business was targeted in July 2017.

The owner assumed a customer had come in but turned and saw a man armed with a baseball bat. A confrontation ensued with a passerby stepping in to help. Another man with a baseball bat coming in to assist in the robbery.

The owner retreated to a residential area and tried to bring the shutters down but the robbers had fled.

Police traced the vehicle which had been used to get away in and found it belonged to Levi Edwards. The 27-year-old's Salford home was searched shortly afterwards.

Prosecutor Paul Hodgkinson said they found cocaine in her coat pocket and cannabis and snap bags upstairs.

Edwards was initially arrested on suspicion of taking part in the robbery, but it later emerged she had only assisted those who did.

Later she admitted to possession with intent to supply cocaine and cannabis and assisting an offender.

Prosecutors accepted she drove the robbers to the scene not knowing what was going to take place but drove away knowing what had gone on.

They also accepted she was the custodian of the drugs and not intending to profit from their sale.

Adam Roxborough, defending, described her as a “young lady who would benefit from some guidance.”

Judge Nicholas Dean warned her that if she had known a robbery was going to take place she would have faced years of imprisonment.

He said: “You were not involved in the robbery of a small corner shop. Even if it was just as a driver taking people to what you knew was a robbery it would be met with years if imprisonment.

“I am prepared to accept that your guilty plea properly represents your role, working as to assist after realising something serious must have happened.

“The position is similar regarding the drug offences, you were not a dupe.

“You are the mother of three children, it would undoubtedly do a great deal of harm if you were sent immediately to prison.”

He gave her a 15-month suspended prison term with 20 rehabilitation activity days.