A SLURRING and incoherent woman was more than three times over the drink-drive limit when she crashed her car in a pub car park, a court heard.

PC John Hepke told Bolton Magistrates Court yesterday how he had been alerted to a possible accident after hearing a crunching noise while standing outside the Westhoughton police post on July 3 last year.

He looked over a wall into the adjacent Wetherspoons car park and saw a Toyota MR2 vehicle which had apparently just collided with the bumper of a parked Renault Clio.

He told the court how he saw a woman behind the wheel of the Toyota and made a note of the registration number.

Colleagues were alerted who went to a house in Manchester Road, Westhoughton, where 32-year-old Ravinder Chahil lived.

PC Hepke arrived a short time later and arrested Ms Chahil. He told the court: “Her speech was slurred and her eyes glazed.

“She was incoherent.”

In interview Chahil claimed to have been drinking at home and not been over the limit when she was driving the Toyota.

A breath test showed she had 109 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal driving limit is 35mg.

She also stated that she had stopped to talk to someone on her way home from the pub carpark for between two to 10 minutes.

PC Hepke told the court he had driven the route and she would have had between seven and 10 minutes at home before his colleagues also arrived in which to consume alcohol.

Chahil, who now lives in Issac Way, Manchester, has pleaded not guilty to drink driving.

She also denied driving without due care and attention, failing to stop after an accident and failing to report an accident.

The case continues