School evacuated after 'explosive device' threat
Up to 300 schools across Northern Ireland were targeted in a mass hoax bomb threat on Monday, prompting evacuations and a major police response. The threatening emails, which warned of explosive devices in school buildings, originated from outside the UK and are being treated as a hoax by authorities.
St Colman's Primary School in Lambeg was among those affected, urging parents to collect their children immediately while reassuring families that all pupils were safe. The school, which has approximately 400 children and 80 staff members, was one of many educational institutions that received the identical threatening message.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland confirmed it received numerous reports regarding the emails and launched urgent enquiries in liaison with affected schools. Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson stated that police consider the risk to the public as low and are working closely with the Department of Education and Education Authority.
The scale of the incident required cross-border assistance, with Police Scotland providing call handlers to help manage the volume of incoming reports on Monday morning. The coordinated support underscored the magnitude of the response needed to address hundreds of simultaneous reports.
The threatening emails were not confined to Northern Ireland. Similar messages were received by schools in other parts of the UK, including Scotland, on the same day, indicating a coordinated campaign targeting educational institutions across multiple regions.
Despite the widespread threat, the majority of schools that received the emails remained open, though some chose to close as a precautionary measure while police conducted their investigations.
Pattern of school hoaxes
The incident follows a pattern of mass school bomb threat hoaxes in the UK. In March 2018, over 400 schools across England received hoax emails believed to have originated from the United States, causing widespread disruption.
Such incidents carry serious legal consequences. Following a series of hoax threats in 2018, teenager George Duke-Cohan was sentenced to three years in prison for sending bomb threats to over 1,700 schools between March and April of that year, sparking evacuations at hundreds of institutions.
Authorities continue to investigate the source of Monday's emails and are working to identify those responsible for the coordinated hoax campaign that disrupted schools across Northern Ireland and beyond.
