Surgeon held after consultant stabbed during home break-in

A SURGEON was being held last night on suspicion of stabbing another doctor during a break-in at the victim’s home.

Graeme Perks, 65, was stabbed in the stomach and chest when he went downstairs to investigate the sound of glass smashing in the early hours of Thursday.

Last night Mr Perks, pictured, a semiretired plastic surgeon, remained seriously ill in hospital as detectives continued to question his 55-year-old former NHS colleague, who is also a surgeon.

It is understood that police are investigating the possibility that petrol was poured into Mr Perks’s £800,000 home in Halam, Nottinghamshire, before he disturbed the intruder.

Yesterday police forensic officers were seen going in and out of the £600,000 detached home of the doctor who is being questioned.

A neighbour said the married surgeon’s car had been taken away. He added that the suspect had been embroiled in numerous rows with neighbours over boundary disputes. Yesterday, police remained stationed outside Mr Perks’s house, a former vicarage on a hill on the edge of the affluent village of Halam.

Glenys Herbert, a villager and local church warden, said former consultant Mr Perks and his wife Beverley, 68, who have four grown-up children, open their garden to the public each summer as part of the National Garden Scheme. She described Mr Perks as a ‘lovely person’.

Mrs Herbert added: ‘Graeme and Beverley have huge French doors at the back of the house, so I wonder if that is how the intruder gained entry?’

Mr Perks completed his last NHS patient list in November, although a relative said he still ‘helps out a little bit’ at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Mr Perks was taken to Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham for surgery.

Detective Inspector Gayle Hart, said: ‘We’re continuing to make inquiries and are not ruling anything out.’