Halford charged over taxi driver row

Alison Halford has been charged with common assault

A former assistant chief constable and member of the Welsh Assembly has been charged with common assault following a row with a taxi driver.

Alison Halford, the Labour AM for Delyn, was formally charged on Wednesday over a disagreement with a taxi driver in January.

Ms Halford is a member of the Welsh Assembly

Ms Halford, who is a former assistant chief constable with Merseyside police, did not attend the hearing at Wrexham magistrates court.

She is accused of attacking a taxi driver after he refused to allow her dog into his cab.

The summoned before magistrates follows an investigation by police into an incident near her home in Prospect Close in Ewloe, near Mold, in Flintshire in January.

Ms Halford has vigorously denied any wrong doing.

Once Britain's highest ranking woman police officer, Ms Halford turned to politics after fighting a high profile sex-discrimination case against Merseyside Police.

Sex discrimination

She failed to attend the court hearing on Wednesday and the case was adjourned in her absence until 13 June

Detectives based at Mold investigated the allegation but the file was considered by the Crown Prosecution Service not locally but in York.

The CPS has decided that there is a case to answer and that she should be summonsed to court.

Ms Halford spent 30 years as a police officer and was the first woman in the country to rise to the rank of assistant chief constable.

She rose to public prominence when she fought a sexual discrimination case against Merseyside Police.

In 1997, she won a phone-tapping case against the Home Secretary and the Government in the European Court of Human Rights, which forced a review of UK laws.