A drunk woman urinated on a war memorial in Essex while on bail for doing exactly the same thing just months earlier, a court heard.

Kelly Martin, 42, allegedly relieved herself on the monument in Grays on June 30 - the day before the country marked the centenary of the Battle of the Somme.

Two months earlier - on April 13 - she was arrested for urinating on the same memorial while Remembrance poppy wreaths lay on it, Basildon Magistrates' Court was told on Tuesday.

On both occasions she is accused of doing it in front of families with young children, whose parents had to shield their eyes from the drunk and disorderly woman.

Essex Police Pc James Shelton, who arrested her after the earlier alleged incident, told the court he was "shocked" by what he saw taking place in front of 15-20 people.

He said: "For me, the war memorial is something that we need to remember in terms of people who gave their lives for us.

"We hold them in our hearts. I was so disgusted that someone could be so deliberately offensive towards it.

"I looked around in disbelief. In particular I saw a mother that had a child in a pushchair. She was trying to shield her child's eyes from what was happening."

Martin is also accused of throwing a bottle at, and verbally abusing, a paramedic at the memorial on June 30.

She denies two charges of outraging public decency, one of common assault and one of using threatening or abusive language.