Frank Bruno saw police called to his home on Monday as medics tried to treat the British former world heavyweight boxing champion.
According to the Press Association, police officers were trying to assist an ambulance crew at Bruno’s home near Brentwood, Essex, east of London.
An Essex police spokesperson said: ”I can say that we are assisting ambulance crews to remove a patient from an address near Brentwood.”
Bruno admitted last month he had received treatment at the Priory clinic in Essex following his divorce from his wife Laura.
However, he denied he had a drink or drugs problem, telling the BBC: ”I went to the Priory because I couldn’t understand how I could lose so much money through lawyers, through solicitors, through accountants and through people. It is jealousy and power and money.
”They are trying to make me into the English Mike Tyson but I’m not the English Mike Tyson. I’m the English Frank Bruno, I always was,” said Bruno in a reference to the American former heavyweight champion, who twice beat him in bouts and who has served time in prison for rape.
”Everybody has problems. I’m okay. I’ve been through a lot of pressure, a lot of stress, but I’m feeling stronger and stronger every day.
”I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’ve been depressed. With the money I lost, I’ve been a little bit depressed.”
In April, Bruno, aged 41 and out of the ring for seven years, said he wanted to come out of retirement for a one-off bout with fellow Briton and Sydney Olympic champion Audley Harrison.
Bruno said that 20% of his earnings from a contest with Harrison would go towards a hardship fund for retired boxers.
However, only an astonishing U-turn by the British Boxing Board of Control would see what always looked a contest that owed more to hype than reality take place in front of the duo’s home fans.
Bruno admitted to having a detached retina following his second defeat by Mike Tyson seven years ago and for the British Boxing Board of Control, known as one of the more safety-conscious sanctioning authorities in world boxing, that type of injury is reason enough to refuse a boxer a licence on medical grounds.
Bruno, now a popular performer on the British pantomime circuit, won 40 of his 45 professional contests in his 14-year professional career.
But it was said by his critics that many of those victories came against moderate opponents and that as soon as he fought boxers of any real quality he lost.
Bruno’s five professional defeats came against James ”Bonecrusher” Smith and in world title bouts against Tim Witherspoon, Tyson (twice) and Lennox Lewis.
He eventually won the WBC version of the world heavyweight title when he outpointed the United States’s Oliver McCall over 12 rounds at Wembley in 1995. — Sapa-AFP