8 February 2013 Last updated at 12:27 ET
A severely disabled prisoner who requires round-the-clock treatment does not have to go back to jail, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
Daniel Roque Hall, 30, was given a three-year sentence in July after admitting trying to smuggle cocaine worth more than 300,000 in his wheelchair from Peru through Heathrow.
He was sent to Wormwood Scrubs, but suffered heart failure within weeks.
Hall, from north-west London, has spent most of his sentence in hospital.
He has Friedreich's ataxia, which causes loss of physical co-ordination, and is not expected to live into his 40s.
Allowing his appeal against sentence, Lord Justice Hughes, Mr Justice Wyn Williams and Mr Justice Hickinbottom substituted his sentence for the lesser term of 18 months, which means he can return home this week.
He was taken to University College Hospital last August and has been kept in hospital under prison guard since then.
He has impaired speech, diabetes and a weakened heart, and was being cared for round-the-clock before he was sent to prison.
Lord Justice Hughes said there was no lack of punishment in what Hall had undergone since being sentenced, and his case was "an appropriate case for an exceptional application of mercy".
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Disabled prisoner can return home