POLICE are waiting to question a 63-year-old man following a dramatic siege on a Hampshire housing estate.

The man was taken to Southampton General Hospital yesterday following the three-hour stand-off at an address in Hamtun Crescent, Totton.

He was arrested on suspicion of affray and will be quizzed by detectives when he leaves hospital.

Police were called to the house at 12.40pm following a disturbance involving a man and his wife.

When officers arrived at the property the man came to the door and threatened them with a carving knife.

He was seen waving the knife around and is also understood to have threatened to set fire to the property.

An ambulance and a fire crew were called to the scene as a precaution.

The man went back inside the house, which was empty at the time, and refused to let officers in. When specially trained negotiators failed to talk him out, armed police forced their way into the property.

Neighbours in the normally quiet crescent say the man was later carried out of the house on a stretcher.