From the Nottingham Evening Post, 21 January 1999, p.12:
And Nottingham Evening Post, 24 May 2012, p.8:A HEROIN addict escaped an immediate prison sentence for driving while disqualified so she could look after her seven-year-old son.
Stipendiary magistrate Peter Nuttall told Melanie Shaw, 28, he would adjourn sentencing for four weeks so probation officers could look into the possibility of putting her on a programme to combat her addiction.
Shaw, of Byford Close, Mapperley, also pleaded guilty to driving without insurance and giving a false name to police. The court heard she was stopped in Mapperley Park on August 5 after going through a red light.
The court heard Shaw, who was given a suspended sentence at crown court in December, suffered abuse as a child which led to her drug addiction. There was no one else to look after her son and she had started a computer course at Clarendon College to try to escape her old life. Shaw was bailed to return to court on February 18.
And Nottingham Post, 12 December 2014, p.24-25, by Rebecca Sherdley:MELANIE Shaw, 41, of Bonnington Crescent, Sherwood, pleaded guilty to driving a Honda Civic car in Mansfield Road, Nottingham, on July 19 last year without a proper licence.
She was disqualified for six months, fined £75, and ordered to pay £35 costs and a £15 victim surcharge.
A WOMAN convicted of arson after a family of five had to flee their home when she set fire to their garden shed will serve her sentence in the community.
Melanie Shaw, 44, of Bonnington Crescent, Sherwood, was found guilty of starting a shed fire and throwing paint on the Sherwood family's home last month.
Despite denying the charges, she was convicted by a jury's unanimous verdict of arson, being reckless as to whether life was endangered on February 1, and damaging property at the same house on June 26.
Returning to court yesterday, she was given a community order for three years with supervision from the probation service.
Judge Michael Pert QC said he was satisfied Shaw suffered from mental illness.
He told her: "Because you are ill, I'm not going to send you to prison."
She was given a five-year restraining order, which bans her from contacting the victims of the arson attack or going to their home.
Shaw thanked the judge for his time as she left court. Her many supporters, who attended her trial, clapped her as she left.
Shaw was said to have had a grudge against a friend who lived at the house where the sheds were set on fire after she had spoken to social services.
Shaw, who is a churchgoer, lived nearby and had threatened her friend before. She started a fire in the family's garden shed as they slept, the court heard.
The friend's husband, who raised the alarm, told the court that they had all gone to bed when he awoke and heard a noise like the sound of running water.
He thought one of the children had left a tap on but when he got up, he saw orange flames against the landing window.
"I went to the window, thinking next door was on fire, and saw the shed was ablaze," he told the court.
His partner called the fire brigade, while he ran to neighbours' houses to alert them to the danger.
Flammable acetylene gas bottles had been inside the shed but remained intact.
The family could not return immediately to their home until it was considered safe because acetylene can continue to burn inside the cylinder.
The fire happened at night, so it was not until the following morning that the family saw abusive graffiti about their daughter on a door and a wall.
Four months after starting the blaze, Shaw attacked the family's home again, throwing paint at the house.
