A police detective has gone on trial accused of pushing his wife to the ground causing an injury to her head, hand and shoulder.

Detective Constable David Alway, 41, is accused of assault causing actual bodily harm to Tamsyn Alway at their home in Bournemouth overnight on Friday December 13 2019.

A friend of Mrs Alway, Simon Storr, told Southampton Crown Court that he was on a video call with her in the early hours of Saturday December 14 when the defendant returned home from a night out and a row erupted between the couple.

Mr Storr said: “He (Alway) came to Tamsyn’s room, the conversation between them was unsettled, it was getting a bit heated.

“Tamsyn was saying ‘You can’t just come into my room, can you please close the door, I am on the phone with someone’.

“He did leave the room, the door was slammed loudly, she was surprised and shouted ‘What the ****’.”

Mr Storr continued: “I said ‘Are you OK? Is everything OK?’, she was upset at the door being slammed as the mirror had come off the wall.

“I asked her to get her belongings and leave the house, she was upset.”

He added: “Tamsyn was hysterical when things were getting out of control.”

Mr Storr said he organised an Uber taxi to pick her up and when she arrived at his home, he said she was “very distressed”.

He said that Mrs Alway had an injury to her hand and a “large lump on her head” which she said had happened as she was pushed into the garden as she went to bring her dogs inside.

Detective Sergeant Mark Portelli, who was the defendant’s line manager at Dorset Police, said that he was informed of the allegation on December 17 and shortly afterwards Alway asked to have a private word with him.

Mr Portelli said that Alway told him of the incident, saying: “When I got home from my night out, Tamsyn and I had a row, I pushed her and she fell to the ground and hurt her wrist.

“I thought it was a minor injury but now she is saying she has fractured her wrist, she is now saying she wants me to move out of the house.”

Mr Portelli said Alway was “very emotional, very teary, very upset”.

He said the defendant was arrested shortly afterwards to be interviewed about the allegation.

Alway denies the charge and the trial continues.

A Dorset Police spokesman said that Alway had been placed on restricted duties following the allegation.