TWO weeks after starting work at Ysgol Borth-y-Gest, a highly-regarded teaching assistant was found drunk in a classroom.

Her speech was slurred, she stumbled along a corridor and when asked by colleagues couldn’t tell them where she lived, an Education Workforce Council’s fitness to practise committee heard.

But it was decided that a reprimand was enough of a sanction against Katherine Herbert, who said she did not intend to work in education again.

“I could smell alcohol on her breath and she slurred her words when she spoke,” a colleague said.

Officials from Gwynedd County Council were called and while waiting for them to arrive Mrs Herbert fell asleep in the staff room.

She told investigators that she had drunk three-quarters of a bottle of wine that morning and had had a lift to school with Pupil A’s mother.

Mrs Herbert was suspended immediately but resigned before a disciplinary hearing was called.

Read the full story in today’s Arfon/Dwyfor edition of the Cambrian News