A MOTHER dipped her child’s dummy in lager and sambuca during a drinking session in the pub, a court heard.

The 20-year-old, from Darlington, who was said to be suffering from depression, also placed a bottle of lager and a vodka-based drink to the child’s lips, using a straw.

She admitted a charge of child neglect when she appeared appearing at the town’s magistrates’ court.

David Maddison, prosecuting, said the woman’s behaviour was witnessed in Yates’s Bar, in Darlington, in February.

He said: “She provided the child with lager by dipping the child’s dummy [into it].

“She also dipped it into sambuca.

A bottle of Budweiser and a Smirnoff Ice was also placed on the child’s lips by way of a straw.”

The 20-year-old, who The Northern Echo has chosen not to name, admitted a separate charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice in relation to “threatening”

texts and calls she made to a witness.

She also pleaded guilty to assaulting a woman by beating her on April 4.

Referring to the pub incident, her solicitor Chris Bunting said: “At the time she was suffering badly from depression.

The conduct that occurred was at a time when she was not herself.”

He said his client, who was on benefits, maintained that the witnesses’ account had been “greatly embellished”.

Chairman of the bench Greg Hart told the woman: “You realise now just how serious your actions were at the time.”

Mr Hart said the defendant would not be jailed for the offences and said she would be given a 12 month community order.

The order included a year’s supervision by the probation service.

Mr Hart said that taking into account her financial circumstances, there would be no order for court costs, nor would she have to pay compensation.