A grandfather was arrested at dawn and held in a police cell for six hours for using a single swear-word in front of a council official. Thomas Catcheside, 67, had his fingerprints and DNA taken, before being issued with an £80 fixed-penalty notice. His arrest followed a dispute with a council official about 'dangerously slippery' communal stairs in his block of flats in Cambridge. Mr Catcheside, who is chairman of his residents' group, has been campaigning for three years for safety improvements.

But when an official visiting the site prevented him from listening to a phone call to his supervisor on October 30, he finally lost his temper and said: 'Don't you tell me what I can and can't do in my own ****ing place.'

The official complained of feeling 'threatened' and six days later Mr Catcheside was arrested at 5.35am on suspicion of 'causing harassment, alarm or distress in a public place'.

The former lorry driver, still in his dressing gown, was marched into his bedroom, where his wife Deborah, 62, was asleep, and ordered to get changed before being driven away in a police van. He was then held in a windowless-cell for six hours before being given the fixed-penalty notice and released. Mr Catcheside, who has asthma and high blood pressure, was so distressed that he suffered a panic attack and had to be seen by a police doctor.

He said: 'My wife and I were asleep when the police arrived. I opened the door and they just barged in.

'I told them to wait a minute but they followed me into my bedroom where my wife was in bed. She was so embarrassed she hid behind a cushion.

'I was frightened and angry as I felt like I was being criminalised. It was so heavy handed.

'The police seem to have trouble catching proper criminals and here they were dragging me down to the station for defending my rights.

'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 Cambridgeshire police spokesman said they had been following 'national policy' in their response.

She added: 'We were responding to reports of an assault, which is a serious offence.

'The suspect was arrested at the earliest possible opportunity, which happened to be at 5.35am.

'There was not enough evidence to suggest he had committed an assault but he admitted to being abusive and was issued with a fine and words of advice about his behaviour.'

Robert Hollingsworth of City Homes, a housing association which runs council housing for Cambridge council, said they had reported the incident to the police because their representative had felt 'threatened'.

- Dailymail