schools across the
UK have been evacuated after a series of
bomb threats were made with a ransom note demanding money.
A bomb has been placed on school grounds and will be detonated if demands are not met, the threat says.
Parents have been told to collect their children immediately.
More than 400 schools have been contacted across the country including
London,
Essex,
Suffolk,
Lincolnshire,
Yorkshire,
Humberside and
Northumbria.
They are believed to have come from the United States via email and contained a ransom note demanding money.
The email is believed to demand $5,000, giving the school three hours to send money.
An unverified image on social media claims to show the email sent to schools saying: “The bomb is set to go off in 3 hours time if you do not send $5,000."
It adds: “If you do not sent the money we will blow up the device.
“If you try to call the cops we WILL blow up the device on the SPOT. ANY attempt at defusing it your self will cause it to explode.”
Cardinal Road School in Feltham, Hounslow, is one of the schools evacuated in London.
A message sent out by the school to parents read: "Following an incident at Cardinal Road School we have been advised to evacuate the building.
"Please collect your child as soon as possible."
Schools in Chiswick, Ilford and Lambeth have also been evacuated.
A Hounslow Council spokesman said: “Several schools are affected in Hounslow.
"Initially we thought it was isolated to one school. But there are eight to date in Hounslow that we are aware of. I can’t say if they have all been evacuated.
“We are monitoring the situation very closely, and working with the police and taking our lead from them. “Schools have their own protocol in place and its up to them how they respond.”
Our Lady Immaculate Catholic Primary school in Tolworth was also affected.
The threats are being treated as a mass hoax.
Orthodox Judaism comprehensive school the Kantor King Solomon, in Barkingside, east London tweeted: “There was a national threat made to lots of schools this morning and KKS went into evacuation to ensure the safety of our site.
“This was in conjunction with CST and the Metropolitan Police.
“We have established that there is no further threat and School is now running as normal.”
A group of Putin-sympathisers was behind a similar series of bomb threats to schools across the UK and France in 2016.
The group named ‘Evacuators 2K16’, which used a Russian email address ending in the domain ‘.ru’ said on Twitter they were behind the threats which targeted 14 schools in Britain and six in France.
Its Twitter account said it supported the Assad regime in Syria. It told children to contact them if they wanted to “get out of school”.
In Yorkshire, police said it had sent its Cybercrime Unit Detectives to look at the emails, and said “it is not believed there is any genuine threat”.
The Met Police said eight schools were emailed in Hounslow, but it was up to the schools, not police, whether to evacuate.
In Humberside, 12 schools have told police they have received the email, and have been told not to evacuate.
At least 35 schools have been affected in Northumbria, while nine were sent the threats in Lincolnshire.
A Northumbria Police spokesman said: "We have received reports from a large number of schools in our region they they have received threatening emails.
"The emails inform the school that a bomb has been placed on the grounds and will be detonated if they don't hand over cash.
"Detectives have looked into the emails, which appear to originate from the US, and can confirm there is no viable threat.
"Schools have been visited by police to reassure them that the incident is being treated as a hoax and address any concerns.
"We take all incidents of this nature extremely seriously and an investigation into the emails in question is underway."
A statement from the Met Police said: “Police are investigating reports of communications made to a number of schools across London today, Monday, 19 March.
“There have been no arrests. Enquiries are ongoing.”