A CHEMIST who swigged vodka at work was let off with a reprimand after she cleaned up her act.

Jyoti Thakore, 48, of Edgar Row Close, Wroughton, was sacked after she hugged customers and giggled with her eyes glazed in front of colleagues at the pharmacy in Oxfordshire.

The mother-of-one even asked a passer-by for cash to get a cab home after being dismissed and then tried to pay with her wedding ring.

Mrs Thakore, who said drink "just took over", had failed to dry out twice before appearing at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society a year ago.

But she impressed the committee by staying clean over the last year by attending Alcoholics Anonymous and an addiction clinic at Birds Grove House in Swindon.

Mrs Thakore said: "I feel absolutely wonderful. I am a totally different person it is amazing how it has worked for me. It is a miracle."

The RPS had adjourned until yesterday to allow Mrs Thakore to demonstrate she could spend 21 months without drink.

Committee chairman Lord Fraser of Carmyllie told her they had decided not to strike her off the register.

But he warned that the reprimand would stay on her record.

Mrs Thakore admitted misconduct after being found drunk at work in Knights Chemists, Banbury, in January and May 2003. An assistant found her to be "uncharacteristically giggly, her eyes were glazed and she appeared to be acting out of character, paying exaggerated attention to customers even hugging one of them."

In the second incident her eyes were again glazed as she abused a member of staff. She had also asked the manager at the next-door off licence to tell everyone she had not bought any drink there during working hours.

Mrs Thakore said: "I was drinking more and more in the evenings and there were times I had to top up at lunch times and in the mornings. In the evening I could go through a bottle of wine or half a bottle of vodka."

Mrs Thakore had already been before the RPS over her drink problem which caused her to lose her job at a health centre.

She was allowed to work part-time after the previous hearing in February last year.

Ben Payne