A SMARTLY-dressed man wearing a trilby hat jumped over fences through back gardens to get away from police and ambulance staff.

Officers made door-to-door enquiries after the man, aged in his 50s and thought to be suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, escaped from a property in Hastings Road, Brighton.

One nearby resident, who did not wish to be named, was home alone when ambulance staff knocked at her door at about 6.30pm on Thursday.

She said: "An officer with handcuffs came to the door and asked to look in our garden because a 'paranoid schizophrenic has escaped from a house' and had climbed over the fences.

"I was told to make sure the back door was locked. I was scared - it was scary because I was home alone."

The search operation left neighbours fearful that the man was marauding through their back gardens.

The resident said: "I think a trellis in our garden might have stopped him getting into our garden.

Soon afterwards paramedics were at a property down the road and escorted a man out who was wearing a straw trilby hat, a smart jacket and glasses, carrying a holdall.

The resident added: ""The ambulance workers said they were there to escort him to Crawley.

"When he came out he didn't look how I expected him to. There was no cajoling him or handcuffs, he went very quietly."

A spokesman for Sussex Police said: "At about 6.43pm on Thursday (August 4), police received a request for assistance with a man in Hastings Road, Brighton.

"Officers attended and detained a man in his 50s in the garden of a house in the road, and the incident was left with an ambulance crew."