A police officer who lied in court during her appeal against convictions for driving offences has been jailed for six months.

Hayley Slater, a WPc in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, was charged with drink driving, careless driving and failing to stop after an accident, following a car crash in April 2004 in Tile Hill, Coventry.

Slater - who gave a blood test showing she was more than two-and-a-half times the legal limit - was convicted by Coventry magistrates in September 2004.

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During an appeal at Coventry Crown Court that November, she again insisted a man named Bill, who she met in her local pub, The Bell, had been driving.

She said his surname was Moir but she had been unable to trace him.

Her appeal succeeded and the conviction was quashed, but concerns over her account led to officers from the force's complaints and discipline department tracing Mr Moir through the landlady of the pub.

He told them Slater had driven from the Bell after reversing into a bollard on the car park and how she later asked him to take responsibility for the crash because she would lose her job, but he refused.

Slater (22) formerly of Conway Avenue, Tile Hill South, Coventry, admitted two charges of perjury.

An officer with the Warwickshire force for two years, she was suspended pending an investigation and has resigned.