I'm a pupil at Banchory Academy where recently a pupil set off a smoke
bomb, setting off fire alarms in the process, and leading to the evacuation
of all pupils from the school. It sounds more dramatic than it actually
was, especially if you read the Daily Express or the Sun. The same reporter
is credited with both stories, and they both read almost identically, apart
from a bit about cost (£5 difference). Given that the picture accompanying
both articles are of military grade grenades(certainly no such item was
used), there is falsehood already, but the report itself is completely
wrong. As someone who was there, I can say that there were no "terrified
teenagers" (mildly fascinated, I would say), certainly no single classroom
was filled with "thick white choking fumes" (the fumes were green from what
I saw) and the pupils were calmly escorted out of the school, they did not
"flee". In fact, I still had time to grab a panini before leaving. The
whole thing suggests a desperate journalist who has caught wind of a story
and fabricated the truth in order for it to sell. In its publication, there
has clearly been no attempt made to fact-check and the whole thing has
painted the school in an unnecessarily bad light.