Four men have been arrested at a Staffordshire hospital under the Terrorism Act. Staffordshire Police arrested the men after a police unit, which included firearms officers, was called to the Stafford District General Hospital. The four are being held at a police station in the county. A fifth man who was being treated at the hospital was transferred to another hospital for specialist treatment, police said. Got the Ricin under his nails did he?A Staffordshire Police spokeswoman said the men were arrested "under the Terrorism Act 2000 as a result of information received".
"They were arrested by officers from the force's incident management unit which included some specialist firearms officers," she said. "The men are now in custody at police stations in Staffordshire."
Two sections of the hospital car park are still cordoned off with police tape, with two police cars parked nearby. Armed officers arrived at the car park at 2145 BST on Wednesday after being alerted by staff at the hospital. Martin Yeates, chief executive of the Mid Staffordshire General Hospitals Trust, said access was restricted for a "short period" and ambulances diverted to other hospitals.
"From this morning the hospital has been operating as normal and patients should attend their appointments as normal," he said. "The hospital operated as normal throughout the night. Hospital patients were unaffected by the police operation."
Buckingham Palace has confirmed a scheduled visit of the Queen to Stafford on Friday will be going ahead as planned. A spokeswoman said: "As it stands, there is no change to the royal visit and the Queen will be arriving in Stafford tomorrow morning." Stafford's Labour MP David Kidney said he thought there was "no substance" in the incident and thought it was probably members of hospital staff being over zealous in reporting something suspicious ahead of the Queen's visit. | Better safe than sorry. Linkey fixed |
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