A FEMALE police officer beat up her mum in the back of a car after getting drunk on whisky cocktails.
PC Leanne Counter attacked her mother Julie so viciously that the car was “rocking” from side to side as they were driven along a dual carriageway.
PC Counter was so intoxicated after downing potent Fireball cocktails that she has since claimed she couldn’t remember anything about the incident.
It was only the following day when her father called at her home to rebuke her that she realised what had happened.
Counter has now been found guilty of discreditable conduct at a disciplinary panel and was today sacked by Cleveland Police.
The attack happened after a family Christmas erupted into chaos on Boxing Day 2023.
Counter had been to the pub with relatives when they went back to her sister’s home, the panel was told.
She then became so rowdy that her sister threw her out as her mother agreed to make sure she got home safely.
The pair got into a taxi but her behaviour towards her mother was so alarming the cabbie pulled into Wolviston service station, County Durham.
Mark Ley-Morgan, for Cleveland Police, said Counter had been yelling: “Some Mam you are, f*** off, you never have anything good to say about me.”
The taxi driver threatened to call the police, at which point Mrs Counter told him: “She’s in the police.”
A furious Leanne Counter yelled: “You have ruined my cover” and later called her mother a “c***.”
It was while they were abandoned at the service station that they spotted Lewis Failes and his brother-in-law, Mark, who had stopped to blow up a tyre.
Mr Failes said: “I was approached at the service station by a lady in her mid to late fifties. A younger female was shouting at her and the older woman was trying to calm her down.
“Both had been drinking but the younger woman was a lot more drunk. I recall the older woman telling her she would get into trouble if she did not calm down.
“She asked me to give her a lift because her daughter had joined the police and she wanted to get her away before she got into trouble.”
Mr Failes agreed and set off along the A19 towards Middlesbrough with his brother-in-law in the passenger seat.
But as they drove along Counter began attacking her mum.
He added: “As we were driving along I could feel the car bouncing about. She had moved across the back seat to get to her mother.
“Mark got up and climbed into the back seat. I was close to pulling over and putting them out, I had only had the car a couple of days and I did not want it getting damaged.”
Julie suffered a cut to her face, swollen left cheek bone and bruising to her forearm after being repeatedly punched by her daughter.
She told police: “I have been crying because it was my daughter who attacked me. I cannot even look at Leanne.”
Counter was arrested on suspicion of assault causing actual bodily harm although no criminal charges have yet arisen from the incident.
After her dad confronted her the next day she texted a fellow cop to say: “I am not in the good books with my family.
“If he says I hit her then I must have done.”
She admitted to police investigators that on a previous occasion she had put her father’s girlfriend in a headlock during “an altercation”.
Mr Ley-Morgan added: “She had drunk to excess and there is evidence that this is not a one off.
“She has both verbally abused and then assaulted her mother in front of members of the public. Mr Failes, his passenger and the taxi driver were all aware that she was a police officer.
“A reasonable member of the public would be concerned that an officer was unable to control their drinking and then resorts to violence when drunk.”
Paul Crowley, representing PC Counter, who attended the hearing which was held remotely via Microsoft Teams, said: “She has been consistent in her account that she does not recall the incident.
“She was upset and unreservedly apologetic when she was spoken to by her father about it.
“She is devastated and does not recognise the behaviours that have been alleged against her and has never shied away from the fact that the consumption of alcohol was a factor.
“It is completely out of character for her, she has an unblemished criminal conduct record.”
