Pupil finds 'pipe bomb' at school (From Ealing Times)

Pupil finds 'pipe bomb' at school

3:46pm Monday 6th September 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
•  

A boy has found a pipe bomb lying in his primary school playground in Northern Ireland.

Brendan Shannon, eight, then walked into St Comgall's Primary in Antrim and handed it over to one of the teachers.

Explosives experts were called in after the school's 400 pupils were told to stay away from the building.

Brendan's mother Siobhan Shannon, a nurse, said later: "The people who left that device probably have kids of their own. Have they no conscience?"

The boy and his twin sister, Ciara, had arrived early on their bicycles to help deliver milk to classrooms when he noticed the device lying on top of a painted line close to the playground wall.

He said: "I didn't know what it was. It was like a pipe with a screw and some wires were hanging out of it. Somebody told me afterwards it was a pipe bomb."

Brendan gave the device to one of the teachers, Marie Hannigan. Around the same there was a telephone warning of another device at a second primary school in the town, St Joseph's.

The St Comgall's pupils were first taken to a nearby church hall before being sent home. Police said the people responsible for the alerts were cowardly criminals.

School principal Hilary Cush said he was outraged.

He said: "It's absolutely crazy. It's unbelievable that innocent children should be caught up in something like this."