Louth primary school received hoax bomb threat

The email was received by St Michael's CE Primary School on Monday.

St Michael’s CE Primary School released a statement on social media yesterday explaining that they had been targeted by the hoax.

The statement said: “Sometimes events happen which make you think about things more closely.

“We were one of the many schools reported nationally which, early yesterday, received a ‘bomb threat’.

“We followed our procedures, contacted the Police and the Local Authority, and all was well as it was part of an extensive hoax.”

Today (Wednesday), head teacher Paul Fox told the Leader: “Although this was the first time we had received a threat of this nature, we stayed very calm about it and adhered to the ‘NaCTSO’ National Counter Terrorism Security Office Guidance Note 8/2016, which had sent out to all schools.

“I first called 999 at around 9.40am and was then asked to call 101 and speak to the Police locally, who confirmed other schools in the authority were also reporting the same threat.

“I forwarded the email to the Police and - following their advice and, based on the low risk factor - decided not to evacuate the building.

“I then contacted the Local Authority, School Governing Body, and senior staff.

“Not long after, John O’Connor (Children’s Services Manager for the Local Authority) messaged all schools saying, at that point, 15 Lincolnshire schools had been directly e-mailed, but police were treating it as a hoax and confirmed it wasn’t necessary to evacuate the building.”

Mr Fox added: “We decided not to alarm parents or children and did not inform them until the following day by which time we were able to consider the implications of this new type of threat.

“Although it is almost impossible to counter every single possible incident schools may face in a rapidly changing world, we agreed to tighten security by ensuring our school site was made more secure by auto-locking the external gates earlier.

“Our parents have been highly supportive of the changes we have made, after all, they have been introduced for the safety of their children.”