Pupil who threatened mass shooting at Blackpool high school reportedly apologises and confesses to be ‘a bullied student at Montgomery’

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

An online user who is claiming to have been behind the Blackpool high school massacre threat which left 1,000 pupils too terrified to go to school has reportedly come forward to a local paper to confess and apologise.

Using the name ‘The Real John Smith’, the user posted the lengthy 'confession' on The Blackpool Gazette website on the day students decided to stay away from Montgomery High School in the village of Bispham following a series of disturbing Facebook posts which threatened to “kill as many people as possible.”

In the post, the apparently 15-year-old user urged locals to “PLEASE just forget about the threats” and described himself as “a bullied student at Montgomery,” adding: “I did start the threats but they are NOT genuine; I simply wanted to shock the school into handling the bullies.”

Acknowledging how the threat had “wasted time, money, and panicked people for no reason,” the user claimed to “always regret” his actions and said he only used the threat as a scare tactic because the school had been ignoring his reports of being bullied.

The post concluded: “I’m SO sorry, and I really wish people will forgive me for my actions. I just wanted to do something about the bullies because all other channels of communication were ignored.”

In the original threats posted online, the user reportedly described how “the bullies will be sorry when I go into school with a gun.”

Praising the Sandy Hook Elementary School gunman, 20-year-old Adam Lanza - who killed 20 children and six members of staff in 2012 in the US - the user posted: “I love guys that have the balls to pull something like this off, and on Monday I’ll be added to that list of people.”

In a statement from Lancashire Police, officer DCI Gary Brooks, who is leading the investigation, described it as being “extremely complex” which has been further complicated by the “vast, global nature of the Internet.”

He said: “Whilst the public can’t visibly see what we are doing, I must stress we have a dedicated team of officers and specialist resources working behind the scenes to identify who posted the threats, and the subsequent ‘apology’ on The Gazette’s website. Complex enquiries of this nature could take some time to complete.”

He also added the police is still of the view the threat was “not credible,” and continued: “We do not believe any staff or pupils are at immediate risk of harm as a result of the posts.”