A FORMER award-winning community safety warden was found lying on the pavement outside a town centre pub, a court heard.

Tracy Jayne Kingston, 30, of Lawrie Avenue, Ramsbottom, admitted a charge of public disorder before Rochdale magistrates. The bench decided to make the ex-council worker subject to a conditional discharge with £34 court costs to pay.

Enza Chiappi, prosecuting, said police attention had been drawn to Kingston lying on the pavement outside The Grey Mare in Bolton Street, Ramsbottom. Officers asked if Kingston was okay and two of her friends tried to take her home.

She got up but refused to go with them and staggered across the road.

Kingston then demanded that the police take her home and became aggressive, saying: "Well, lock me up then."

She temporarily became quieter but then broke free from her friends, returned to the officers with clenched fists, and squared up to them, shouting: "Come on arrest me."

Kingston was arrested but struggled and resisted when she was handcuffed and taken to Bury police station.

A woman of previous impeccable character, Kingston expressed her remorse. She is a former community safety warden in the town centre and a neighbourhood warden for the local council who won a Home Office award for her involvement in crime prevention three years ago.

She was said to have taken her father's death five years ago very hard and had been on medication. It was the anniversary of his death which had been the trigger for her condition on the night in question, the court heard.