Police Scotland received more than 300 calls after school bomb threats were sent to schools across Scotland and treated as a hoax. The messages reached both primary and secondary schools, and specialist cyber crime officers began inquiries into where they came from.
Police Scotland said, "Police Scotland received more than 300 calls after threatening messages were sent to a number of schools across Scotland." It also said, "These messages are being treated as a hoax. Officers and staff from Police Scotland's Cyber and Fraud Unit are carrying out extensive inquiries to establish the source."
Andrea Bradley on the scale
Andrea Bradley, EIS general secretary, said the scale of the incident was "very unusual" and that "the person who put together those emails did so with the intention of causing fear and alarm". She added that "that has been somewhat successful". Her comments captured the gap between how quickly the warnings were dismissed and how widely they still spread.
Hundreds of people contacted police after the emails were sent during the October break. Learning was unaffected in schools where pupils had returned, but the disruption still reached staff and families across multiple local authority areas.
Scottish councils and schools
Scotland contacted all 32 Scottish local authorities. More than half said schools in their area had received a warning email, including Scottish Borders, East Lothian, East Renfrewshire, Glasgow, Edinburgh, East Dunbartonshire, Angus, Midlothian, South Lanarkshire, North Lanarkshire, Moray, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire, Inverclyde, and Argyll and Bute.
Highland and Aberdeenshire said they were not aware of any threat. West Dunbartonshire and East Ayrshire referred to the Police Scotland statement. City of Edinburgh Council asked staff to work from home on the in-service day, and a similar option was given to staff at some schools in Inverclyde. One school in South Lanarkshire closed because of an unrelated heating issue.
Northern Ireland reach
Similar hoax emails warning of an explosive device were sent to around 300 schools in Northern Ireland. That wider spread is why Police Scotland's Cyber and Fraud Unit is still working to establish the source of the messages, rather than treating the incident as a localised scare.
The unanswered question is who sent the emails and from where. Until Police Scotland's Cyber and Fraud Unit traces the source, schools that received the warnings are left with the same practical task: keeping staff and families alert to new messages while the inquiry runs.
