The teenage daughter of Sussex Chief Constable Paul Whitehouse has been sentenced to 12 months' probation for kicking a police officer.

Frances Whitehouse, 19, of Prince Edward Road, Lewes, was warned at an earlier hearing at Brighton Magistrates Court she could be jailed.

After reading pre-sentence reports, character references and a statement from her father, District Judge Ann Arnold made a probation order yesterday.

Whitehouse was also ordered to pay £50 compensation to the officer and to a former neighbour she assaulted. She was ordered to pay £789 costs.

The court heard Whitehouse was arrested in May last year outside the flat in St Aubyns, Hove, that she shared with her boyfriend Lloyd Smith, after he fell from a second-floor window.

The first officer at the scene, PC Andrew Salmon, suspected Whitehouse, who appeared to be drunk, had pushed him and arrested her on suspicion of causing grievous bodily harm. She was never charged with any offence in connection with Mr Smith's fall.

She swore at the officer and called him a "no-hope, low-life scum" and said: "My dad was a deputy chief constable at 29, how old are you?"

When she was handcuffed and put in a police car she kicked the driver, PC Christopher Cox, in the head.

At a trial in December she admitted assaulting former neighbour Alistair Scott, who had come to her aid after hearing her screaming for an ambulance in the early hours.

She denied charges of assaulting PC Cox and using threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour with intent to cause harassment, alarm or distress to PC Salmon. She was convicted of both charges.

Clare Wade, defending, said all Whitehouse's convictions stemmed from difficulties in her relationship with her boyfriend.

District Judge Ann Arnold said: "The root of your offending lies with you having drunk too much."

Last December, Whitehouse was given an 18-month conditional discharge after being convicted of possessing an offensive weapon, a pickaxe handle, after her boyfriend had beaten her up.

In July 1999 she was sentenced to 150 hours community service after being convicted of assaulting two police officers during her arrest following a drunken row with her boyfriend.