Psychiatric pair held in Capital after escape

TWO psychiatric patients fled more than 400 miles to Edinburgh after escaping from a secure mental health unit, police said today.

The men left the Shaftesbury Clinic at Springfield Hospital, South London, and jumped on a train north.

The two - one believed to be a convicted rapist - were arrested in the Capital after being on the loose for about six hours. A probe was launched after the incident and a member of staff was suspended.

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It comes after a damning report recently found a series of failings in care led to paranoid schizophrenic John Barrett being able to flee the same clinic and kill a former banker in an unprovoked attack. The latest incident took place two weeks ago.

After leaving the Tooting hospital unnoticed, the two men boarded a train and travelled the 400 miles north. Police arrested the pair at Waverley Station and they were taken to the state hospital at Carstairs, Lanarkshire before being returned to the unit in London.

A spokesman for Lothian and Borders Police said: "We were informed about two men having unlawfully escaped from a secure unit at a London hospital.

"We received information that they were on their way to Edinburgh and officers arrested them when they arrived at Waverley Station on December 14."