An eight-year-old boy walked into a Northern Ireland primary school today carrying a viable pipe bomb.
The pupil found the device on Ballymena Road, in Antrim, and took it into St Comgall's primary school. Army bomb officers were called in and 400 pupils and staff were moved to a nearby church.
Security sources believe the bomb was left in the area by a group aligned to dissident loyalist terrorists opposed to the peace process.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland said there was another security alert at a school in the Greystone Road area of Antrim. A search of the school was under way.
The eight-year-old boy, Brendan Shannon, said he had spotted a "golden pipe bomb" while arriving to school on his bike. He brought the device in to a teacher who called the police.
His father, Gerard, said: "I am trying not to think of the consequences that could have been".
The school's principal, Hilary Cush, said it was "despicable that anybody would put children at risk".
Chief Inspector Simon Walls, the area commander for the district, said: "I cannot express enough my disgust at the cowards involved in these alerts today. To target the general public is never acceptable by any means but to take away the secure feelings of innocent children and to put them at risk like this is beyond despicable".
The Guardian
