Flag prank asking for trouble

Daredevil pranksters have been blamed for flipping the New Zealand flag upside down at Wairarapa College and risking their lives with the trick, says school caretaker Dave Henwood.

Mr Henwood said the flag was flipped upside down - in the US a signal of extreme danger to life or property - overnight on Monday.

He righted the flag on Tuesday morning, he said, and was certain the culprits had put themselves at risk of injury or death after scaling a school building and mounting a corrugated iron roof to execute the prank.

"They can climb up and would have taken their lives in their own hands for the sake of a stupid prank," he said.

Mr Henwood said members of the public have easy access to the school and there had been other similar larks pulled on the grounds during which pranksters would have endangered themselves.

He said empty beer containers had been earlier lined up along a high-pitched roof and empty alcohol bottles and cans are often found about the school grounds after the weekend or before school starts in the morning.

"There's no real way of stopping it because the school is so easily accessible and whoever turned the flag upside down might not have been a student."