A man hurled a cup of cold coffee over a police officer as he was escorted back to the station following his arrest.

Gregory Moran was detained after failing a roadside breath test in Grand Parade, Brighton, at about 1pm on July 12.

The 32-year-old first caught patrolling police officers’ attention when they spotted him arguing with a woman in a Renault Megane.

They stopped the car and asked Moran, an unemployed railway worker of Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire, to take a roadside breath test, which he failed.

As a result, he was arrested and placed into the back of a police vehicle at the scene, but his offending was not done for the day.

After being placed in the vehicle, he reached for a cold cup of coffee from a drinks holder, then threw it over one of the officers.

It was later found he was more than double the drink-drive limit (35mcg) and he was subsequently charged with driving with 75mcg of alcohol per 100ml of breath in his system, assaulting an emergency worker and obstructing police in the execution of their duty.

At Brighton Magistrates’ Court on Thursday,

Moran admitted all three offences.

He was disqualified from driving for 20 months, fined a total of £1,106, and ordered to pay £85 costs and a £110 victim surcharge.

Moran’s arrest came as part of Surrey Police and Sussex Police’s summer crackdown on drink and drug drivers, which ran from June 29 to July 12.

In that time, 83 motorists were arrested.

Currently, seven of the people who have been arrested have been convicted in court.

Sussex Police say the remaining 76 have “either been charged, released under investigation or released without charge”.

Robert Horton, a 23-year-old personal assistant of Belvedere Gardens in Crowborough, was the most recent of the seven to be dealt with in court after being arrested in Church Road, Crowborough, on July 4.

He was charged with driving with 73mcg of alcohol per 100ml of breath in his system, and was disqualified from driving for 20 month at Brighton Magistrates’ Court on August 27.

He was also ordered to pay a £384 fine, £85 costs and a £38 victim surcharge.

The first person caught under the summer crackdown was Jason Sammes, a 51-year-old carpenter of Seaside in Eastbourne.

He was arrested in Warren Road, Brighton, on June 30 and charged with driving with 180mcg of alcohol per 100ml of breath in his system, as well as driving with no insurance.

At Brighton Magistrates’ Court on July 29, he was jailed for 22 weeks and disqualified from driving for 36 months.

He was also ordered to pay £122 costs.