Hero Police Officer Punished While Knife Crime Rises

Award-winning officer sacked after subduing a knife-carrying teen: What does this say about the state of policing in Britain?

PC Lorne Castle was the kind of officer every town wishes they had. An experienced, brave community cop who didn’t just wear the uniform but lived the role. From dragging a drowning woman out of a freezing river to mentoring young people through his boxing academy. Now, after nine years of distinguished service, he’s been dismissed. Not for corruption, not for brutality, not for failing to act. But for losing his composure while arresting a 15-year-old male who had just allegedly assaulted an elderly man and was carrying a Stanley knife.

Read that again. An officer took a dangerous teenager off the streets. The arrest techniques he used were deemed lawful. The suspect resisted and screamed, and a knife fell from his waistband. The officer swore, showed dominance, and called the suspect a name. For this, PC Castle has lost not only his job but his career. And the public? They’re rightly furious.

Let’s be clear: no complaint was made by the boy or his family. No one alleged excessive force. The complaint originated from within the force, in the form of the officers who were with PC Castle; a move that might lead some to wonder whether this was about justice or internal optics. PC Castle admitted he lost control, apologised sincerely, and was visibly emotional during the hearing. He didn’t excuse his conduct. But let’s be honest—anyone who’s actually responded to violent, unpredictable street crime knows that situations like this aren’t textbook.

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PC Castle was reliving a trauma from a previous arrest where he genuinely feared for his life. During that incident, he had been struggling with a county lines drug dealer when the dealer’s associate—standing behind him—was being told to “cut him.” It was only thanks to an off-duty officer stepping in that Castle wasn’t seriously harmed.

That’s not just a detail; it’s a window into what years of frontline policing does to a person’s nervous system. Policing changes you. And when knife crime in Dorset has jumped nearly 22% in a year, do we really want to cast out one of the few officers still willing to run toward danger?

Instead, we have a panel, led by another force’s assistant chief constable, that deemed his loss of temper a greater threat than the knife in the waistband of a violent teen. That’s a dangerous precedent. It sends the message to every frontline officer: If you show too much humanity—if you panic, swear, or show emotion in the line of fire—we’ll end your career. No room for fallibility. No consideration of your trauma.

And let’s not ignore the timing. This case took 16 months to reach a conclusion. Sixteen months of limbo. Sixteen months of stress for a man who’s already saved lives and given his best years to public service. Why did it take so long? Why was the charge brought at all when even the use-of-force techniques were found lawful?

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Look at the national picture. More than half of police officers say their morale is rock bottom. Over 80% feel undervalued. In Dorset, 16% say they’re planning to quit. Do you think cases like this help? Or do they push more good officers out of the job, leaving communities more vulnerable?

It is also telling that some sections of the media chose to lead with an unproven allegation that Castle grabbed the male by the throat. That wasn’t proven. But the damage is already done when headlines run with fiction over fact. That kind of spin tells us everything we need to know about the priorities of those who should be holding truth to power, not punching down at a man who served his community with distinction.

If we want better policing, we need to support those willing to do the job. That includes standing up when a good officer is thrown under the bus to appease internal politics or present a veneer of accountability to an increasingly mistrustful public. And what is one of the reasons why public trust in policing is so low?

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It’s not because officers like PC Castle get hands-on with a violent suspect armed with a knife. It’s because they’re being ordered to spend hours trawling social media posts and recording so-called non-crime hate incidents, a policy dreamed up by the College of Policing in 2014. That’s where the real disconnect lies. The public want real policing, not digital babysitting. And every time we punish frontline officers for doing their job, we widen that gap even further.

Let’s also acknowledge the courage of the public who’ve backed PC Castle. Their support matters. Their outrage is justified. These aren’t armchair commentators looking for drama, they’re people who know what it means to live in a community where officers like Castle show up day in, day out. They understand that dominant and authoritative presence matters and that presence saves lives.

And for PC Castle? He has nothing to be ashamed of. His track record speaks louder than any disciplinary hearing ever could. The lives he’s touched, the life he saved from a river, the youth he trained and mentored—none of that is erased by one moment of flawed human reaction under extreme stress.

But the silence from those in power who should be backing officers like him? That speaks volumes, too.

Most senior officers at the level of Assistant Commissioner or Deputy Assistant Commissioner and above likely haven’t worked a real frontline shift in over 20 years, and policing has changed beyond recognition in that time. Tagging along on the occasional patrol with an inspector doesn’t count as frontline experience.

To truly grasp what response officers are up against today, senior leaders need to spend months on the ground, not a few photo-op hours. Until they do, their decisions will remain disconnected from the brutal reality their officers face daily. Many feel these senior figures are completely disconnected from the reality of modern street policing and how violence towards officers has escalated.

Gone are the days when police could show up to a group of teenagers and not worry about being stabbed.

When you respond to an incident involving aggressive, unpredictable youths, you don’t go in with kid gloves; you go in with presence and authority because that’s what keeps people safe. But this is exactly what senior leaders and most sections of the mainstream media are missing.

The erosion of discipline in society over the last two decades hasn’t just vanished into thin air; it’s landed in our town centres, on our street corners, and ultimately in the laps of frontline cops. And it’s the police who are left to pick up the pieces while being told to do it with a smile and a College-of-Police-approved script that has been written from the comfort and safety of a plush office.

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