A POLICEMAN whose wife recently quit as a special constable has now also resigned.

Constable Richard Taylor and his wife Pauline are to take over The Crown public house in Marlborough.

On Monday Mrs Taylor will ask licensing justices at Devizes to give her a protection order for the pub in The Parade where she has worked behind the bar for a number of years for her close friend and outgoing licensee, Angela McGrorty.

Mr and Mrs Taylor eventually plan to hold the licence in joint names but as he is technically still serving in the police until his resignation takes effect on November 20, he is barred from being a licensee.

Mr Taylor, who has been a policeman for ten years, declined to comment on why he is leaving the force.

It is known he was unhappy when he was told he would be transferring from Marlborough where he has been stationed for eight years to Tidworth.

One of the couple's two sons, Michael, 23, was brain damaged at birth and the couple always tried to dovetail their police shifts so that one was at their Isbury Road home to care for him.

Mrs Taylor, 47, was in the specials for 18 years but said she was leaving because she no longer received the same satisfaction from the unpaid work.

She takes over the public house on November 13 and plans to re-open it and pull her first pints as the new licensee two days later.