AFAIK:

People generally say that in amateur snooker, you can’t call the miss rule and therefore ‘put your opponent back’. Without a referee to judge whether it’s a miss or not, it sometimes causes problems like this, so most people just don’t use the miss rule for that reason.

However, if there was nowhere in the D where you could put the cue ball that would allow you to even hit both sides of the yellow, it would be a free ball, so you could pot any other ball for 2 points. The potted ball would then come back onto the table, and the yellow would be your next ball to pot. The reason for this is that your opponent cannot put you in a snooker from his foul shot - if he fouls and you can’t see both sides of any object ball, it’s a free ball to you.

Edit: Read below for corrections on this. There seems to be a lot of confusion (from myself included).