A barrister turned hotelier who slapped her staff, dragged one by the hair and called another a c**t has been sent to prison.

Shirley Bothroyd, who worked as a human rights barrister at Littleton Chambers, said she bought the Bay Hotel in Teignmouth to give her something to do in her retirement.

Hotel chef Pauline Cave testified that she locked Bothroyd out of the kitchen during a Christening party "due to previous incidents", on the advice of emergency services. "The next thing I know she had grabbed me by the hair from behind and knocked me to the floor", said Cave. "She held me down and kept slapping me".

A receptionist told Newton Abbott magistrates that on another occasion Bothroyd called her a "thick c**t" and hurled a glass at her. And the hotel manager claimed that after shouting at him to get off his iPhone, she"started to hit me". Police arrived to find him covered in cranberry juice, Guinness and red wine, a cocktail hereby christened Bothroyd's Objection.

The remake lacked some of the wit of the original.

Bothroyd's Basil-Fawlty-meets-Begbie routine was well on the way in 2014, when a guest claimed she almost fell on his wife's lap while "clearly intoxicated", knocked a picture off the wall and barged into the kitchen using "very industrial language". Bothroyd said the Trip Advisor review was 50% accurate, conceding, "I do like a drink and keeping my guests entertained". 

This time she accepted two charges of assault and went on trial for the remainder. Bothroyd was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to 22 weeks in HM's hotel. A source who worked with Bothroyd during her time at the Bar described her latest troubles as a "very sad descent into the abyss".