POLICE forced their way into a flat in Sheerness to arrest a psychiatric patient who had been throwing glass, crockery and kitchen tiles into the street.

Matthew Titterton, 27, an American who tried to rob the Nationwide Building Society in Sheerness two years ago using a handgun he had smuggled into the country from the USA, had escaped from a psychiatric hospital.

In April last year Judge Michael Neligan made an indefinite hospital order under the Mental Health Act after being told by a psychiatrist that she thought Titterton, who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, was a serious danger to the public.

But Titterton, whose mother lives at Queen's Way, Sheerness, escaped from the institution and shut himself in the flat above the former New Look shop at Broadway on Thursday morning.

The drama began shortly before 11am when Titterton started shouting and hurling items from the flat. Passers-by called the police and several police vehicles arrived with dozens of officers who cordoned off the High Street and Broadway approaches to the scene.

The stand-off ended more than eight hours later when a tactical support team wearing stab vests, helmets and carrying shields forced their way into the flat.

Swale police spokeswoman Sally Farrell said Titterton, who was not armed, was returned to the institution.

During the stand-off, Titterton's mother, police negotiators and psychiatric experts talked to Titterton who could be seen much of the time laughing, shouting and smoking out of the window. At one point, he draped a Union Flag over the inside of the window and sat with his back to it.