Drunk detective didn’t know the time of day

A DETECTIVE became so drunk at work she thought she had finished her entire four-hour shift after an hour, a court was told.

DC Donna Montgomery, 51, arrived at 10am for her first day in a new role but by 11am had drunk a bottle of vodka and mistakenly believed the time was 2pm.

Colleagues breathalysed her when she was seen wandering around the car park of a police station in Mossley Hill, Liverpool, with the keys to her car in her hand, claiming she had finished work for the day.

Tests showed she was almost three times over the limit and an officer found the small bottle of vodka as well as empty cans of gin and tonic in her car, which she had parked over two spaces.

However, DC Montgomery, an officer with Merseyside Police for 15 years, was cleared of drink driving at Wigan magistrates’ court after claiming she was sober when she arrived at work and had become drunk when she consumed the vodka in the space of an hour in the lavatory.

Det Insp Elaine Coulter told the trial: “I asked her why she was going home so early and she said that she was finished, as she was doing a 10am until 2pm shift – but I knew it was coming up for 11am.

“I could tell she was drunk because she was using a sing-songy voice to answer me and she thought it was 2pm when it was 11am.”

DC Montgomery told the court: “I had been off for three months with workrelated stress. I was upset ... and I started to drink more. I could have a bottle of wine a night. I was made aware that the person I was working with was on a training course so I thought it would be an ideal opportunity to take time off.

“After my annual leave was approved, I went to the toilet and I had some vodka in my bag, which I drank – a 35cl bottle. I drove to work after only drinking two glasses of red wine the night before.”

District judge Mark Hatfield told her: “I am not entirely taken by your account, but at 10am nobody suggests that you were drunk. That means, on a balance of probabilities, I am going to accept your case.”

It is thought Merseyside Police will hold an internal inquiry into the Jan 30 incident.