ARMED police besieged a disused York nursing home after reports that a squatter was holed up inside with a gun - but five hours later they emerged with a toy pistol and declared the building empty.

Police marksmen, dog handlers and tactical planners took up positions outside the boarded-up Burton Croft home after a security guard reported seeing a weapon inside.

Officers closed Burton Stone Lane and held back curious bystanders as a negotiator used a loudhailer to ask whoever was inside to leave the three-storey complex peacefully.

But when armed officers burst into the building, which was abandoned at the weekend by squatters, and began a painstaking room-by-room search, they discovered it was empty and that the gun was a toy.

Inspector David Porter, of York Police, said senior officers had no choice but to take the danger seriously. He said there were no "half-measures" when faced with a firearm.

He said: "For our officers' safety we have to go in floor by floor. There are no half-measures with something like this.

"We have to conduct a professional safe operation to recover a weapon because we do not know who is in there with it."

The drama began at 11.40am when a security guard patrolling the property contacted police about a gun, seen lying on the floor of the building.

Police began a full-scale armed response operation, sealed off the area and brought in tactical firearms officers to deal with the potential threat. Officers wearing body armour and using bullet-proof shields entered the building, which was described by one officer as a "rabbit warren", several hours later.

They conducted a thorough search of the former nursing home, which Barratt Homes has applied to demolish and convert into private flats, but found no-one inside.

Denis Price, who previously squatted at the Gimcrack pub in Fulford, said the squatters left the building at the weekend after local youths broke in and began vandalising the building.

A North Yorkshire Police spokesman said: "We are satisfied that the information was given to us with good intent."

Frazer Collinson, 23, watched the drama unfold from his workplace which overlooks the rear of the Burton Croft complex.

He said: "The police brought out a small, black, plastic gun. It looked like a toy - it certainly wasn't a Magnum."

Barratt's plans for the Burton Croft complex are at the centre of a controversy because it is the former home of J B Morrell, the conservationist once known as York's greatest benefactor.

Updated: 10:48 Thursday, July 31, 2003