Schizophrenic Irishman fired from teaching job in France

An Irishman has been fired from his teaching job in France after his employers learned he was a schizophrenic who escaped from a clinic where he was interned for a knife attack.

Lewis Alexander Mawhinney began teaching German in a high school in the southern Provence town of Digne-les-Bains last month.

But suspicions were aroused when the young man started saying he was a secret agent working for Scotland Yard.

Police were alerted and discovered that the 26-year-old was found not guilty but insane by a court in Belfast, on a charge of wounding a man with a knife in 2008.

He escaped from the psychiatric hospital where he was interned and travelled to France.

Officials said Mawhinney was now in a psychiatric unit in Digne-les-Bains while waiting to be sent back to Northern Ireland.