Crowd looks on as man at window threatens to jump

POLICE were called to a block of flats in Muirhouse after a man apparently threatened to jump from a seventh floor window.

Hundreds of onlookers gathered to watch the man last night at around 6pm as he balanced himself on the ledge of a balcony, while three police officers on the balcony below tried to coax him back.

The crowd was moved back by a police cordon and the road was closed off. After a tense hour of negotiations the man pulled himself back over the balcony and went back inside the flat.

A police spokesman said: "Following an incident at Birnies Court, Edinburgh, a 57-year-old man was safely removed from the balcony of the seventh floor. He was taken by ambulance to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh suffering from hypothermia."