A NOTORIOUS street drinker could be banned from her native city as the authorities make a fresh move to curb her behaviour.

Karen Anne Bulmer is now barred from the Richard III Museum because it was the place where she committed the latest of more than 400 alcohol-related offences. She had been a regular visitor to the Monkgate Bar tourist attraction.

Martin Butterworth, prosecuting, said she was drinking from a can of strong beer and was so drunk she was staggering and smelt of alcohol. She swore at people in the museum, then sat down on steps leading to the museum, blocking their use by anyone else.

The offence happened a couple of hours after York magistrates had released her following an earlier offence.

Following her most recent arrest, police applied for a criminal behaviour order, which her solicitor Craig Robertson said would be opposed because it included banning her from York, where she was born and grew up.

She is already subject to an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) banning her from having an open container of alcohol in public, among other conditions.

Bulmer, 47, of no fixed address, admitted breaching the ASBO. Because she had been in police custody for nearly three days awaiting her court hearing, magistrates decided she had been punished sufficiently.

The criminal behaviour order was adjourned until December 16 for a case management hearing.

Mr Butterworth said the Richard III Museum would no longer allow her into its premises as a result of her behaviour there.

Mr Robertson said: "She is an alcoholic. She doesn't set out to commit offences. She is a young lady who has fallen through the social cracks."

People gave her alcohol, and if she was arrested with alcohol, the alcohol was returned to her when she was released from custody. When she was arrested in connection to the museum offence, Bulmer had alcohol on her which she had had with her when in court shortly before.

A spokesman for North Yorkshire Police said after the court case: “Although being in possession of an open drinking vessel breaches the ASBO against Ms Bulmer, being in possession of sealed containers of alcohol does not breach any local orders. We therefore do not have the right to confiscate her personal property.”