A Kingston man reported his own girlfriend to police when she drove home drunk from the pub, Kingston Magistrates’ Court has heard.

Sarah Hyde, 45, of Beaufort Road, was warned that she could have faced prison for being three times over the drink-drive limit on April 18.

She had an argument with her boyfriend in her local pub and then later drove her car home, the court was told on June 12.

When she arrived, her boyfriend called the police and she owned up to it immediately.

Pleading guilty, unemployed Hyde said it was through “personal circumstances” that she came to drive herself home when she had not planned to.

She said: “Life has been rather difficult for me over the last six months. I have compensated for that with alcohol. I’ve gone to AA and made an appointment with a counsellor.”

Lead magistrate Mr Nowakowski said: “Your reading was very very high and normally the courts would have considered custody, especially because it was a second offence.

"If anything like this happens again, there will be a place in Holloway for you.”

She cried in the dock as she was sentenced to a three-year driving ban, two year community order with an alcohol rehabilitation programme and fined £70 costs.