A WOMAN has been charged with drink driving after giving a breath test reading almost 4.5 times the drink drive limit in York.

The 39-year-old woman was challenged by North Yorkshire Police officers outside the Spar shop in Clifton Green at just before 7pm yesterday, after a member of the public reported her to police.

A roadside breath test suggested the woman, who was driving a Ford Focus and had a child under the age of seven in the vehicle with her, had 154 microgrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath - almost four and a half times the legal limit of 35mg per 100ml.

The arrest came just hours after the results of North Yorkshire Police's anti-drink driving campaign showed 111 motorists had been arrested in June, with breathalyser results showing 40 per cent were twice the legal drink-drive limit or above, while 12 per cent were three times the limit or higher.

The figures were described by police as "alarming" and "disappointing", and much higher than 2014's summer campaign.

A police spokesman said the woman, from the Leeman Road area, was kept in custody and charged this morning with drink driving and being drunk in charge of a child under seven. She is due before York and Selby Magistrates' Court later this month.