No further action will be taken against the man who was arrested on suspicion of impersonating a police officer for wearing a pig mask and toy bobby’s helmet.

Steven Peers was held in custody for eight hours after being detained for dressing up in the outfit – which he says he uses to perform ‘comical parodies’ of Greater Manchester Police.

As we revealed last week, a policeman arrested him on suspicion of impersonating a police officer near Bootle Street station in Manchester city centre – in an incident blasted as ‘ridiculous’ by Mr Peers.

The M.E.N. can now reveal that GMP has dropped the case because of ‘insufficient evidence’ and intends to take no further action against the 46-year-old.

Father-of-four Mr Peers was notified yesterday and his confiscated outfit was returned.

He said: “It was a surprise. I was quite looking forward to arguing it in court.

“Everybody I spoke to thought it was ridiculous and such bad publicity for GMP. The have obviously shied away from taking it further for that reason.

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“It’s the right course of action for them. It’s been dropped very quickly, the press attention seems to have hurried them up.”

Mr Peers said he began performing skits using his comic character ‘Officer 666’ to highlight ‘violence, corruption and bad behaviour’ carried out by GMP after becoming unhappy with how the force policed the anti-fracking protest at Barton Moss, in Eccles, Salford.

The electrical engineer, who lives in New Moston, regularly visited the protest camp to film the demonstration, which became known for clashes between police and environmental campaigners.

Mr Peers featured in the M.E.N. in February accusing an officer of lying to detain him on a ‘trumped-up’ charge of refusing a breath test. That case also fell apart, this time at court, when prosecutors offered no evidence. The Independent Police Complaints Commission is supervising an investigation into the arrest.

Mr Peers said he would discuss the impersonating an officer arrest with his solicitors to see what action could be taken. He added he would be dressing up as ‘Officer 666’ for an event on Market Street in Manchester today.

A GMP spokesman said: “We are no longer investigating this and no further action against him will be taken.”