A mother drank a bottle of wine before driving to her daughter’s school, mounting the pavement, hitting a lamppost and then falling over in front of police.

Parents with prams scattered as Christine Townsend drove straight at them in a borrowed BMW outside Eynsham Primary School, Oxford Crown Court heard.

The unemployed 45-year-old, who has a previous drink-driving conviction, was collecting her seven-year-old daughter on February 8.

She yesterday admitted careless driving and failing to provide a roadside breathtest.

Prosecutor Cathy Olliver said: “Other mothers who had picked up their children saw a BMW coming straight across the road in front of them. The driver beeped her horn as she drove across the pavement. It is not said she was driving fast.

“She bumped into a lamppost. Other people spoke to her and said Miss Townsend was initially unresponsive, then just stared ahead.”

Townsend, of Hazeldene Close, Eynsham, was so drunk that when police arrived she “tried to stand up but fell backwards”, Miss Olliver said.

She admitted to officers that she had drunk a bottle of wine that afternoon but failed to give a full sample of breath.

Nick Cotter, defending, said the incident “speaks for itself” but said his client relied on her car to visit her disabled mother in Sandford-on-Thames.

He said her partner, a long-distance lorry driver, had suffered serious heart problems and Townsend had to drive him to and from the hospital.

Mr Cotter said: “She doesn’t accept the description that she’s an alcoholic.”

Judge Julian Hall replied: “Anyone who drinks a bottle of wine in the early afternoon has a drink problem.”

Townsend was fined £250 and banned from driving for three years. To regain her licence she must prove to the Secretary of State she no longer has a drink problem.

Judge Hall said: “You got behind the wheel of a car and almost unbelievably you decided that was the way you would pick your daughter up from school. You lost control, you drove across the pavement where other people had their prams and daughters.”