Snack-Sneaking ‘Red in Bed’ No Sleeping Beauty, British Decide

A Russian emigre who has avoided police questioning by lying in a hospital bed with his eyes shut for almost two weeks will be sent home to France by ambulance, a frustrated hospital official said Wednesday.

The 43-year-old man, identified by police as Vladimir Leontev, has been nicknamed the “Red in Bed,” or the “Sleeping Russian” by the Fleet Street press, which also says that he has been known to sneak food left for him when nurses are not looking.

Police said he was hospitalized for two days of observation after a road accident on Nov. 16. When police later took him to court to face a traffic violation, he slipped to the ground, apparently pretending to be unconscious, they said.

The traffic charge was dropped Wednesday, but police would like to question him about almost $40,000 in French francs found on him after the accident.

However, the bearded Leontev is saying nothing. He is in a bed at the General Hospital at Hemel Hempstead, 25 miles northwest of London, and hospital administrator Frances Shanahan said she is certain he is faking unconsciousness and wants him out.

“There is nothing wrong with him, and I don’t want him in this hospital,” she said. “He isn’t taking responsibility for his own life, so we have to take that responsibility for him.”

Leontev is believed to have arrived in England via Channel ferry Nov. 15. After consulting several doctors, including a psychiatrist, Shanahan said the hospital decided to send Leontev back to France as soon as his Paris address is learned. She said the cost of the trip by private ambulance will be deducted from the $37,750 he was carrying.

Shanahan said tests have shown that Leontev can hear people and understand what is going on. She said he does not respond when offered anything to eat, but food and drink left at his bedside is consumed when nobody is looking, usually at night.

“He is a complete nuisance because he’s blocking an acute (badly needed) hospital bed when there is nothing at all wrong with him,” she said.

During his first hospitalization, Leontev stopped answering questions after the staff refused his demands for someone to read him works by Lord Byron, the 19th-Century English Romantic poet, Shanahan said.

“He wanted a lot of things, like fresh air, a room to himself, a cooker and pots and pans plus an English girl to read books, preferably Byron, to him,” she said.