It can be a means to achieve an admission of guilt, and sometimes treatment, when a court conviction seems unlikely.

Fewer than one in four handout fraud cases now leads to a court conviction and only one in 50 ends in a prison term.

But this option exposes them to a possible criminal court conviction.

His first term was quite short though; after seven days he had to resign on court conviction.

This caused a scandal and earned him his sixth court conviction to date.