22 JULY TIMELINE

● 12:06am: An man, known only as “Adam”, calls police to say five men are outside his Edinburgh flat armed with guns, Tasers and knives. Four armed response vehicles and nine firearms officers are deployed but find no trace of any men or weapons.

● 12:09am: The man calls police again to say he is following the men in a car along Seafield Road.

● 12:20am: Police stop two cars which are pursuing another vehicle at speed. The occupants allege the vehicle contains those responsible for the flat incident. Firearms officers deploy to search for and stop the third vehicle.

● 12:30am: Police receive hoax report of an attempted robbery. Believing it to be linked, the force deploys armed officers to Guthrie Street, where no evidence of a crime is found.

● 12:40am: Three men report suspicious activity involving two vehicles in a retail park at Seafield Road, where they find a car, apparently abandoned, with its doors open. Firearms officers are deployed.

● 12:55am: Firearms officers sent to a flat where a car of the same make, but different colour, to the vehicle abandoned in the retail park was parked. Officers told to carry out armed detention of the owner and search his flat and car. They also confront the man’s neighbours in the stairwell.

● 1:24am: Armed officers attend a call about a vehicle on fire in Poplar Lane. Unarmed officers arrive first and find a bin alight.

● 1:26am: “Adam” again calls police to say his alleged assailants – two black men and one white man – are in a black Audi at a petrol station in Restalrig.

● 1:36am: Police spot a black Audi at traffic lights in Duke Street. Officers detain the three men and two women from the car behind. All were later released from custody, the two women after being stripsearched and held for nearly 24 hours.