A HAVE-A GO HERO who landed up in police cells after making a citizens' arrest, has spoken out about the way he was treated.

Uley Brewery boss Chas Wright, 57, and his friend Simon Palk collared a man suspected of trying to break into Mr Palk's car outside a Dursley pub. But the pair found themselves under arrest when police arrived on the scene.

They were locked up for 14 hours on suspicion of assaulting the man during the citizens' arrest but were then freed without charge.

Mr Wright said: "We were treated like common criminals. Indignity was piled upon indignity.

"We expected to be congratulated for making a citizen's arrest but instead we were locked up - something that has never happened to me before.

"I have suffered a stroke in the past and have to take regular medication but it was removed from me after my arrest and I was told I would need the police surgeon's permission to take it.

"I was eventually allowed to have it but they took all my clothes and I had to wear a paper suit. The whole experience was appalling."

He said it was when he and Mr Palk were leaving the brewery's Old Spot Inn in Dursley that they noticed someone in the car.

"The nearside door of my friend's car was open and a man was in it trying to remove the radio.

"We challenged him and he tried to flee. A short scuffle ensued and we brought the man to the ground and secured him.

"I removed his trainers and threw them over a fence to prevent further escape. When the police arrived we expected to be congratulated - but far from it. We were also arrested along with the suspect.

"The villain was transmogrified into a victim and lay whining 'They've hurt me, they've hurt me.'

"Why the police could not simply have taken statements at the scene of the crime I don't know but we found ourselves bundled into the police vehicle with the thief."

A Gloucestershire police spokesman defended the police action at the time saying it appeared the man had been "subjected to an unnecessary degree of violence."

He added that seizure of clothes for forensic analysis was standard procedure in such cases and that no-one under arrest was allowed to take medication until a doctor had certified it was safe to do so.