A trainee chef at the London branch of Le Cordon Bleu, the world's most famous cookery school, threatened to kill himself last night, it emerged today.
The 28-year-old, who is thought to have failed an exam at the Marylebone school on Tuesday, returned last night and demanded to re-take it, grabbing a knife from the kitchen classroom and threatening to kill himself, according to the Daily Mail.
Police were called and negotiators spent the next four hours trying to calm him down.
At about 9pm yesterday, officers in full riot protection gear stormed the premises, stunned him with a Taser gun and arrested the knifeman before taking him away for questioning.
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “We were called at 5.24pm after receiving reports of man armed with a knife threatening to self-harm at a commercial premises in Marylebone.
“A negotiator attended the scene and was talking to the male and subsequently territorial support group officers entered the catering school at 9.55pm.
“The 28-year-old man was Tasered and arrested. He suffered no apparent injury but was treated anyway by paramedics. It is thought he had failed a training course.”
Le Cordon Bleu was founded in Paris in 1895 and has since spread to 29 schools across the world.
It has trained a number of the UK’s leading hospitality figures, including Prue Leith, Sally Clarke, who runs Clarke's restaurant in Kensington, and Allegra McEvedy, the founder healthy fast-food chain Leon.
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By Daniel Thomas
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