Lorne Castle, 47, has been charged with causing grievous bodily harm without intent after an altercation outside the Castlepoint shopping centre in Bournemouth left Daniel Meyrick seriously injured last June.
The charge, brought by the Crown Prosecution Service under section 20 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, accuses Castle of unlawfully and maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm on the alleged victim. He has been told to appear in the dock for the first time on May 27.
The incident happened on June 19 last year outside a Nike store, where Castle was pictured detaining a suspected shoplifter and pinning him to the ground with his arm locked behind his back. The restraint was described at the time as a citizen’s arrest.
Castle had left his role as a PC at Dorset Police only a few weeks before the confrontation, and he was later investigated by police over what happened that day. The case now turns on whether his actions went beyond lawful restraint and caused the kind of injury prosecutors say they can prove.
That question will be tested in court when Castle appears in the dock on May 27. For Meyrick, whose name is now tied to the case, the charge marks the next stage in a process that began with a brief street confrontation and has since become a criminal prosecution.
