Inquiry continues after pupils 'threatened with gun'

Police remove handcuffs from a man spoken to after schoolchildren reported the 'threat'. Picture / Brett Phibbs

Primary school children fled in terror after claiming a man was threatening them with a gun.

The claims led to an armed offenders squad call-out and a two-hour drama at Birkdale Primary School on the North Shore yesterday afternoon.

There had been no arrests last night but police said the investigation was continuing. Children from the school and several people living nearby would be interviewed.

Inspector Les Patterson, operations manager for North Shore police, said it remained unclear what had happened.

"There are varying reports from the children and there are language barriers in speaking to the people who may have been involved"

Police were called to the school around 2pm. At the height of the incident more than a dozen squad cars and a police dog were present and the police helicopter was circling overhead. Roads were closed as police spoke to people whose properties bordered the school.

A parent picking up her daughter yesterday said: "It's the last thing you expect when you arrive at your child's school. It really makes you nervous."

Mr Patterson said children had admitted throwing stones at a neighbouring property in their lunchbreak.

"A man has then confronted the children and remonstrated with them and he may have been in possession of a firearm, or certainly a weapon of some kind," he said.

Birkdale Primary principal Roger Shearer said he had been led to believe the man had a knife. He had reacted angrily because some children had "not behaved particularly well".

"There was no one on the school grounds who should not have been and the children were not in any danger," Mr Shearer said. "But it seems some children were throwing stones at the fence. There will be some children that get their heads banged together."

Officers opened roads and left the scene at about 4pm. Mr Patterson said a translator would be brought in to help interview a man.