Drink driver grabbed policeman’s crotch

Woman made a lewd remark and touched young officer

A woman who made a grab for a policeman’s private parts after being stopped for drink-driving has been spared prison.

Sally Brown, 39, was behind the wheel of a Suzuki Swift when she was stopped by three officers in Scarborough who were concerned about her erratic driving.

When the young male officer asked her to blow into the breath-test device, Brown touched his genitals and made a sexually-suggestive remark to him, York Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Mehran Nassiri said Brown was just over twice the legal drink-drive limit when she was stopped near Castle Road at about 4am on February 28.

He said Brown made another lewd remark to one of the two female officers related to leather clothing.

Brown, whose then boyfriend was in the passenger seat, was described as “animated”.

Brown, of Lodge Close, Cayton, was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a police officer and drink-driving.

She admitted the latter charge but denied the sexual offence. She appeared for trial on one day wearing leopardprint clothing.

Prosecutor Mehran Nassiri said that when the male officer asked Brown for a breath specimen and showed her how to use the device, he was “grabbed by the crotch”.

Brown - who is thought to have been drinking vodka - continued to make “derogatory comments” to officers even after being placed in the police van.

She was taken in for questioning but her rowdy behaviour continued in the custody suite, where she claimed she couldn’t remember the incident.

The male officer told the court that Brown’s Suzuki had almost collided with a parked car before the vehicle was stopped. “I spoke with the driver and there was the smell of alcohol,” he added.

“Miss Brown was quite loud. She was laughing and joking.

“She said something like she ‘Had a pint; so what?’.

“She was really being quite dismissive about being stopped by police. She found it quite funny.”

The officer said that when he instructed Brown to blow into the breathalyser it prompted a lewd “analogy”, and it was at this point that “I felt somebody touch my crotch.”

“I immediately told her to keep her hands to herself,” added the officer. “It was a fleeting second. It was not a grab in the sense of a hold.”

The jury found Brown guilty of sexual assault on the second day of the trial.

Her barrister Glen Parsons said Brown had no previous convictions but had used “a lot of extreme language and behaviour”.

Judge Paul Batty QC said: “This was a serving police officer who was doing no more than his duty, and he was subjected to the grossest vilification by a drunken [driver].

“This woman was beyond control.”

He told Brown: “Your behaviour was an absolute disgrace.

“You were loud; you were abusive in the extreme, and you sought to grab the arresting officer.”

Brown was given a fivemonth suspended prison sentence and 20-month driving ban.

She was also subjected to a five-month nightly curfew.

Brown was also placed on the sex-offenders’ register for seven years.