Carluke Primary evacuated in bomb hoax

It is understood that a call made to police made a false claim of explosive devices having been planted in several schools throughout Scotland.

In Clydesdale, the only school on the list was Carluke Primary School and, as in the other threatened locations, police and education staff took rapid action to evacuate the building while checks were carried out.

Classes were badly disrupted as pupils were taken temporarily to Carluke’s High Mill Primary where they stayed until their own school was thoroughly checked by police and

fire and rescue services and given the ‘all clear’.

It appears that Carluke was one of only two South Lanarkshire Council schools to be targeted by the hoaxer, the other being Canberra Primary in East Kilbride.

A council spokeswoman said that, as it was chiefly a police matter, she could not comment extensively on the incident but stressed that the safety of pupils and staff was the highest priority and treated as such despite Police Scotland quickly adivising that the threat “did not appear to be credible” but was “being taken seriously”.

The hoaxer’s list initially was thought to have included only Central Belt schools but it was later learned that the false bomb reports also involved schools as far apart as Dumfries and Galloway and Perth. Police say a full investigation into the incident is underway.