Teddy strop

A prisoner who needed lifesaving surgery refused to go to hospital without his favourite teddy. Barry Piper, an inmate at Wakefield high security jail is known as "a man who can look after himself".

But the hardened criminal staged a stand-off in the van waiting to rush him to hospital and demanded guards fetch the cuddly toy from his cell, saying: "I have to have my teddy."

Eventually the guards gave in and after the teddy was searched for contraband and handed to him, Piper - who is in his 60s - agreed to leave.

An insider said: "There was an uneasy stand-off and at first the prison officers thought he was joking.

"He was seriously ill and he had to go in for a major operation. But he was not going to leave for it without his teddy bear." Piper was taken to Pinderfields Hospital for the surgery, thought to be for a heart condition, where he remains in a serious condition.

The insider went on: "He's been in and out of jail and is a bit of a hard man, so you can imagine the reaction when he asked for his teddy.

"But he's in a bad way so perhaps he thought he was going to meet his maker and didn't want to go alone."

Piper is in Wakefield prison - dubbed Monster Mansion - alongside some of the most notorious inmates, including Ian Huntley, cannibal Robert Maudsley and Roy Whiting, who murdered eight-year-old Sarah Payne in 2000. The Prison Service last night declined to comment on Piper's condition due to patient confidentiality.