A POLICE commissioner has accused a female judge of "victim-blaming" after she warned that drunk women are putting themselves at greater risk of rape.

Judge Lindsey Kushner QC said women were entitled to "drink themselves into the ground" but their "disinhibited behaviour" could put them in danger.

However Northumbria's Police and Crime Commissioner, Vera Baird, said. the remarks would stop victims speaking out.

Kushner, 64, made the courtroom plea as she jailed a man for six years for raping an 18-year-old woman in Manchester last year.

The mother of two, who has sat as a senior circuit judge since 2002, acknowledged judges have been criticised for "putting more emphasis on what girls should and shouldn't do than on the act and the blame to be apportioned to rapists".

She said: "There is absolutely no excuse and a woman can do with her body what she wants and a man will have to adjust his behaviour accordingly."

But she added "as a woman judge" it would "be remiss" if she did not plead with women to protect themselves from predatory men who ''gravitate'' towards drunken females.

Baird, a former Labour MP and solicitor general, said: "When somebody is raped they feel guilt and shame and they find it very hard to report it.

"If a judge has just said to them 'Well, if you drank you are more likely to get raped, we are not likely to believe you and you have been disinhibited so you've rather brought it on yourself' then that guilt is just going to get worse."