among his most controversial sentencing decisions was a case in early 1989 in which he sentenced a man to a period of probation after he was convicted of sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl. later that year, he jailed a woman for seven days for contempt of court when she refused to give evidence against her ex-boyfriend, who had assaulted her - she was later freed by the court of appeal. in the early 1990 he imprisoned a 19-year-old single mother to six months on a charge of theft for letting her friends take goods - the sentence was replaced by a period of probation on appeal.