Man held for six hours for swearing

CAMBRIDGE, England, Nov. 10 (UPI) -- A 67-year-old British man said he was arrested at dawn, held for six hours and forced to give a DNA sample for swearing at a council official days earlier.

Thomas Catcheside, 67, said police came to his Cambridge, England, door at 5:35 a.m. Nov. 5 and he was arrested, fingerprinted and held in a cell for six hours before being issued a $133 fixed-penalty citation and released, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday.

Catcheside said the charge was "causing harassment, alarm or distress in a public place" related to an Oct. 30 complaint he made to an official visiting the site of an internal staircase Catcheside has been campaigning to have refitted due to "dangerously slippery" conditions. Catcheside said he lost his temper during the argument and used an expletive beginning with the letter "f."

"The police seem to have so much trouble catching proper criminals and here they were dragging me down to the station for defending my rights," he said. "I admit I swore, but I was frustrated because we have been fighting to get these stairs improved for years, writing letter after letter, and the council has taken no notice."

A Cambridge police spokeswoman said "national policy" was followed during the arrest.