Arrested: The grandfather who ‘attacked’ an RAF Apache with an £8 torch



Questioned: Torben Merriott investigated the noise using a cheap torch

A lighting expert who has worked for the Queen has been arrested for shining an £8.45 torch at an RAF Apache helicopter gunship outside his home in the early hours.



Torben Merriott, 63, was woken by what felt and sounded like an ‘earthquake’ outside his bedroom window at 1am.



The grandfather used the torch to identify the aircraft.



He spotted one of two gunships on an exercise just ‘10ft above my garden’ at his farmhouse in Stradbroke near Eye, Suffolk, and called the Ministry of Defence complaint line.



But instead of receiving an apology for the September 18 disturbance, Mr Merriott was visited three weeks later by police, who arrested him on suspicion of endangering an aircraft by dazzling the pilot.

Mr Merriott was taken to Bury St Edmunds police station where he was questioned and held in a cell for nine hours before being bailed pending further inquiries. The torch was also seized by officers.

He is now waiting to hear if he will be charged with endangering an aircraft, which carries a maximum two years in jail.

Mr Merriott, who owns a theatrical lighting firm, insists he did not put the aircraft at risk as he has had professional experience of lighting up flying helicopters at a Buckingham Palace event hosted by the Queen.

‘Don’t tell the Taliban that all they need is an eight-quid torch to bring down multi-million-pound high-tech gunships,’ he said.