A Hertfordshire force spokesman said: "Police were called just after 12.30pm on Sunday following a report that a 42-year-old man had approached a member of the public who was unknown to him, appearing unwell and in an agitated state in Hemel Hempstead.

"Officers arrived and accompanied the man to hospital so he could be checked over. He was sectioned under the Mental Health Act."

The troubled ex-footballer was previously sectioned under the Act in February. He spent more than a fortnight at Middleton St George Hospital, in Darlington, Co Durham, before being released.

At the weekend Anna Gascoigne spoke of her fears that her brother would die if he was not sectioned.

In an interview with the Sunday Mirror, she pleaded with fans not to buy the star a drink, saying: "You will have blood on your hands."

Her words came amid reports that the footballing great had again been involved in a drunken incident. Gascoigne was seen collapsing in front of travellers at St Pancras railway station on Saturday night, before being taken away in an ambulance.

His sister told the newspaper: "I am not saying these words lightly. I want Paul to be sectioned to save his life. That is the last hope. There is nothing else. I fear every day he'll die."

In May his daughter, Bianca, spoke out after officers were called to a hotel in Knightsbridge, central London, where Gascoigne was behaving in a drunk and unpredictable manner.

She said the family was "powerless" to help him as he continued to battle with alcoholism and depression. He was treated in hospital following the incident.