Shocking moment armed police tell cowering children to hide after school stabbing

Exclusive: The shocking footage shows the moment pupils are told to move to the back of a cupboard and stay quiet

This is the shocking moment an armed police officer tells a group of pupils to hide at the back of a cupboard as they continue to search for a suspected knifeman.

Terrified pupils can be heard crying after they spent hours barricaded inside a cupboard at Tewkesbury Academy in Gloucestershire on Monday.

About three hours in, an armed police officer “kicked in” the door of the design and technology classroom they were being taught in before the school went into lockdown shortly after 9am.

He then tries the door of the room’s cupboard as police searched for the suspected knifeman who allegedly stabbed a teacher at the school.

Instead, the pupils’ teacher can be heard saying: “Who is it?”

The officer speaks to her before she opens the door - prompting the pupils to surge forward.

He tells them: “Listen, everyone stay nice and calm.

“Stay right at the back (of the cupboard) and just stay nice and calm.”

This afternoon Gloucestershire Police confirmed that the teenage suspect, from Tewkesbury, has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.

The boy remains in custody.

Speaking exclusively to The Independent after the lockdown was lifted, a relative of one of the pupils in the cupboard said she spent around another hour there before eventually being released.

The school was locked down for hours as police searched for the knifeman (Getty Images)

She said: “They were in there for about four hours.

“The school went into lockdown at around 9.10am and the teacher put ladders against the door.

“When the pupils asked what was wrong she said she couldn’t say but would tell use when they got into the cupboard.

“When they got in there she said they were in lockdown but she couldn’t say any more because she didn’t know anything.”

Over the next three hours the pupils - who had been having an art lesson in the block - sat there.

The pupil’s guardian said that some of them cried or were quiet while others “didn’t take it too seriously”.

At the same time they heard someone - possibly the knifeman - trying to get into their classroom.

It was only around three hours in that the police came into the room and gave them instructions.

Recounting the experience, the pupil said: “We didn’t know what was going on.

“We thought there was someone trying to hurt the students not the teacher so the teacher put a ladder against the door.

“It was terrifying. We thought it was someone with a knife or a gun.”

She also revealed that the teacher who was stabbed was popular with students and had previously been taught by him.