DISTURBANCE AT CARSTAIRS: ARMED COPS STORM STATE HOSPITAL IN SIEGE DRAMA

Patient barricades himself in toilet and threatens to stab staff

- JANE HAMILTON and MARCELLO MEGA

ARMED police stormed the State Hospital after a patient barricaded himself in a toilet.

Staff at Carstairs, which houses Scotland’s most dangerous psychiatric patients, called in help after the 24-year-old made an improvised weapon.

The man, from Tayside, told nursing staff he would stab them if they tried to enter the room.

Uniformed officers wearing stab-proof vests attended but they called in armed reinforcements when the patient became more agitated and shouted threats.

A source said: “The patient managed to barricade himself inside a bathroom and more or less dismantle it, wrenching fittings out and smashing them.

“He managed to fashion a weapon from the debris he created and threatened the nursing staff who were trying to persuade him to come out.