Children evacuated from school during bomb alert

The ordeal for the children, teachers and staff at Crumlin Integrated Primary School began when a suspicious device was discovered at the pedestrian gate of the nearby unmanned police station on Wednesday morning by a PSNI officer.

The children, along with 30 families from Helen Street and Loughview Terrace, were evacuated as bomb disposal experts were called.

Worried parents were contacted and had to collect their children from school.

One parent Barrie Clingen, who is Pastor of Crumlin Baptist Church, said he first became aware of what was going on when he got a call from the school to say his four-year-old daughter Rachel - on just her third day at school - was at the community centre following a bomb alert.

"You think that all of this is in the past," he said. "As a child you grew up with it but you never expected your children to have to grow up with it as well. It is just disgraceful.

"At least when we heard that Rachel was in the community centre we knew that she was safe."

He also spoke of his concern for the lollypop man who stands near the police station and brings children across the road to safety.

A grandmother said she had just walked past the station minutes before the device was found.

She was helping at the church hall with her daughter when they got a call to say that her grandchild and another young girl she looks after were at the community centre.

"My daughter got the call and said we had to go quick as the Mill Road was blocked off and the children had been sent to the community centre" the woman said.

"I was sickened to the stomach. To think that just a few days ago an eight year old boy picked up a bomb at St Comgalls. If that had gone off - I shudder to think."

She also praised the school for keeping the incident low key for the pupils.

"The children were told that someone had burned bread and that was the reason why the police were there," she said.

The school remianed closed on Thursday as police continued their investigation.

MLA Thomas Burns condemned the attack which he said he believed was the work of dissidents: "This happened after the incident at St Comgalls in Antrim when an 8-year-old boy picked up a pipe bomb and now we have this in Crumlin" he said.

"It's difficult to believe they are leaving bombs at schools and areas near schools."

Noreen Campbell, Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education also condemned the incident.

"When our youngest children are put at risk it focusses the mind on how precious their lives are and how we are obliged to protect them and their future," she said.

She said that it was 'beyond belief' how such disregard for life could be shown by those who planted the bomb.

"Such actions are anti democratic against the wishes of the vast majority of people who want to engage and be part of a better future and reject totally the use of violence."

Sinn Fin MLA for South Antrim Mitchell McLaughlin called the incident 'wreckless' and a 'senseless' act.

"The leaving of the device at the PSNI station is wrong and will achieve nothing. It is despicable that those responsible have left this device literally across the street from a local primary school and only yards for the local fire station," he said. "It is as stupid and senseless as the leaving of a pipe bomb in St Comgalls in Antrim earlier in the week.

"The wrecklessness of this action shows that whoever is behind it has little regard for this community. It will do little to achieve any sort of political aims and those responsible must realise that.

"The community do not want this, and have said that time and time again. It is high time that these senseless actions stopped."