£81,000 for siege volunteer

A man has been awarded £81,000 in compensation after he was almost stabbed to death when police let him try to end a siege.

Negotiators allowed Andrew McLean to climb onto a roof in Leicester city centre after his suicidal friend Patrick McNeill threatened to leap 90 feet. But McNeill attacked him and he survived only after emergency treatment.

Recorder Jeremy Cousins QC, sitting at Redditch County Court, ordered Leicestershire police to pay him compensation because they "encouraged" him to confront McNeill. Five years later, Mr McLean, now 45, still has physical and psychological scars.

He sued the police for negligence. They insisted he was told of the potential dangers even though officers at the scene knew nothing of McNeill's violent past.

McNeill was detained indefinitely in a psychiatric hospital.