A photojournalist has criticised police after he was arrested while flying a camera-equipped drone, and claimed it may be a taste of things to come, with thousands of the gadgets sold at Christmas.

Eddie Mitchell, who works for a range of organisations including the BBC, lodged a complaint on Wednesday with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) after his drone was confiscated by police while he was attempting to gather footage following a fire in which three people died at a mobile home in Newchapel, Surrey.

The 49-year-old, who claims he had verbal permission from the owner of the land above which his drone was flying, said three officers snatched the control from his hands on Tuesday and struggled to land the machine as it flew around 50 metres above a field. He was held on suspicion of a breach of the peace and later freed without charge after more than five hours in police custody.

As he retrieved the drone on Wednesday, Surrey police released a statement saying that the arrest was made following complaints from local residents and others in the vicinity of the incident in which a woman and two young children died.

Detective Chief Inspector Antony Archibald said that concerns about the behaviour of a man were raised to officers from people who believed he was acting in a disrespectful and intrusive manner.

He added: “At the time of the arrest, the main focus for officers and fire crew at the scene was to conclude the initial forensic investigation and to allow the dignified removal of the bodies of those who had sadly died.”

However, the photojournalist responded by saying that after his arrest, police took him to the camp site where the fire took place and “paraded” him around for 25 minutes.

“I find it a bit hypocritical for the police to suggest that I was being intrustive,” said Mitchell, who is one of the few journalists with approval from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) to commercially operate Small Unmanned Aircraft (SUA)Mitchell said he did not need to alert air traffic control as he was operating a drone weighing under 7kg. “The drone was up for about five minutes and then the cops decided to snatch the controller from me.

“It was an incredibly dangerous thing that they did. They didn’t know the dangers that they were putting myself, themselves and passing air traffic in.

“It could have flown off in any direction. They were passing the controller between themselves and eventually got it down with a thud.”

Mitchell predicted that the debate around drone use in general and, in particular, the approach taken by the police towards their use by journalists would continue to come into focus after a Christmas in which thousands were sold.

“It’s ironic because I happened to have been in a meeting with senior police officers the other day and they said that they thought that using a drone was one of the more sympathetic and non-intrusive ways of getting pictures,” he said.

“It’s been reported that 20,000 drones were sold over Christmas so there are going to be ongoing problems. They are going to have to probably rewrite the rule book. It’s also ironic that they acted in this case, where it was a qualified pilot at the controls.”

Regulations include a ban on flying remote-controlled devices over congested areas or within 50 metres (164ft) of people or buildings without official permission.

Breaches can result in the operator being taken to court and fined up to £5,000, and the CAA prosecuted two cases relating to unmanned aircraft in 2014.

In April a man was fined £800 for flying a drone through restricted airspace over a nuclear submarine base in what was thought to be the first such prosecution anywhere in the world.

The following month a man was fined for flying a quadcopter over a number of rides at Alton Towers in November last year.