A POLICE chief who turned to alcohol after crumbling under the pressure of her job was spared a prison sentence yesterday for driving while nearly four times the legal limit.

Inspector Elizabeth Byron, who headed Hertfordshire's road policing unit until she took sick leave last year, was stopped on the A66 at Lamb Hill, near Bowes, County Durham, in May.

The 43-year-old gave a positive roadside breath test and recorded 127 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35.

Yesterday, Bishop Auckland magistrates banned Byron, who pleaded guilty, from driving for 30 months and sentenced her to complete an 18-month Community Rehabilitation Order. She will also have to complete a drink impaired drivers programme and pay £55 costs.

She was also offered a place on a drink-drivers rehabilitation scheme which she will have to pay for herself. If completed it would reduce her driving ban by seven months.

The court was told how the high flier, who rose to the rank of acting superintendent, crumbled under the responsibility of her job and the pressure of a 70 to 92-hour working week.

One of her roles as a senior traffic police officer would have been targeting drink drivers and, last night, road safety groups were outraged at the what they said was a lenient sentence.

Ben Heatley, spokesman for the road safety group Brake, said: "It is absolutely appalling that someone who has spent so much of their life upholding the law should develop such a wanton lack of respect for human life and the law itself.

"The fact that such a lenient sentence was handed out is disappointing because it sends out a message that you can drive heavily over the limit and escape strict punishment. I think a custodial sentence would have been appropriate in this case.''

Byron has resigned from the force she joined at the age of 18 and will lose her police-owned home in Hatfield.

Her solicitor, Lynn Simpson, said that her job ends at the end of this month and she was now applying for state benefits and would find it difficult to pay a financial penalty.

Byron declined to comment as she left the court.