ARMED police descended on a normally sleepy village near Melksham on Thursday on the tail of an escaped mental patient thought to be armed with a bayonet.

About a dozen police officers, including a firearms response team, swooped on Seend Cleeve, staking out a house in the High Street after reports the man, who is wanted for questioning in connection with a serious assault, had taken refuge there.

A dog handler and the police helicopter were also called in as officers spent a tense two hours outside the house.

Inspector Peter Bowerbank of Devizes police said: "We had quite a lot of intelligence about this man's violent past and had been warned he could have been armed with a bayonet.

"Because of that, officers were authorised to carry baton guns."

The 48-year-old man, who has not been named, had escaped from the East Surrey Hospital in Redhill, where he had been undergoing assessment for mental illness, three days ago.

Sussex police had previously been searching for him for several months to bring him in for questioning about an assault.

He spent those months travelling around the country, sleeping rough

and looking up old friends, and had come to Seend Cleeve to see an old acquaintance from university, who lives in the village with her partner.

The partner, who asked

not to be named, said:

"She hadn't seen him for 10 years.

"He came around about four weeks ago out of the blue and stayed a couple of days.

"He was obviously disturbed.

"He went away then last week we got a phone call from his father saying if he turned up again to humour him and call the police.

"There is a bit of sadness there because you don't like snitching, but you think 'what if he had gone and killed someone?'."

Stunned villagers looked on as the normally quiet village became the centre of a major police operation.

Kim Knight, who lives close by, said: "It was a bit of a shock because nothing really goes on in the village.

"It is rare that something out of the ordinary happens here."

An elderly neighbour, who asked not to be named, watched the drama unfold outside her living room window.

She said: "We were just sitting in their having our tea when we heard the sound of brakes and noise of cars.

"We looked out of the window and suddenly there were all these police with guns all over the place.

"I have never seen so many policemen in my life."

The man eventually came out of the house and gave himself up to police.

Insp Bowerbank said: "It isn't the sort of thing you expect to happen in Seend Cleeve but the main thing was we were able to arrest him without a struggle and without anyone getting injured."

The man was not found to be carrying a weapon and was taken to Melksham police station where he was detained overnight before being handed over to Sussex police.