A Cordon Bleu cookery student wielding a knife threatened to commit suicide yesterday when he discovered he couldn’t retake his exams.
The incident happened at the renowned Cordon Bleu cookery school in Marylebone Lane in London at around 5pm.
The 28-year-old French-Algerian man failed an exam on Tuesday and returned to the school on Wednesday demanding to retake it.
The student was on the Intermediate Cuisine course, the London Evening Standard reports, which costs around £4000. This was most of the man’s savings, decanter.com understands.
When he realised he would not be able to take the exam again, he grabbed hold of a knife. Police were called at around 5.30pm, as well as a negotiator who tried to calm the man down.
A local trader told decanter.com he was speaking to a friend of the student throughout the incident.
‘He explained to me that his friend had lost the plot. He had spent all of his money training at the school and was desperate to retake the exam as he did not have any more money left.’
Finally, at 8.55pm, officers in full riot gear stormed the premises, knocked him out with a Taser electronic gun and arrested him. The man was not injured but was taken to University College Hospital as precautionary measure.
The man was discharged from hospital this morning and taken to a central police station where he remains in custody.
Le Cordon Bleu said it would not comment.
Written by Erica Loi
