Queensland Police (QPS) has launched an investigation after a number of Queensland schools received threatening emails today.
“The QPS is liaising closely with Education Queensland and is working with schools to take necessary precautions to ensure community safety,” it said in a statement.
“Making threats is a serious criminal offence and these incidents will be fully investigated.”
News of the threatening emails being received by Queensland schools follows three days of similar threats to NSW high schools as thousands of students sat HSC exams this week.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian today revealed that some of the email threats had emanated from eastern Europe.
Students at a north Sydney school were evacuated and then allowed to return to class following threats made in a phone call this morning.Â
Police believe the threats were from a copycat and were not linked to the threatening emails.
“The police Commissioner is working very closely with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and federal authorities in relation to those threats,” the Premier said today.
“Police are managing the threats in an appropriate way which maintains the safety of students but minimises disruption.
“The Police Commissioner is confident the incident in north Sydney is easier to trace, as it is a local phone call, so police are already onto it.”
Ms Berejiklian said she was angered by the threats and issued a stern warning to any copycats.
“The police will come down on you heavily if anybody poses any threat at all to the safety or the wellbeing of our students,” she said.
“Haven’t the students of 2020 been through enough? The last thing they need is this.”
NSW Police Minister David Elliott said the NSW security breach was being investigated by Australia’s leading cybercrime detectives.
“It certainly takes a small and demented mind to interrupt HSC students, after a traumatic year during a pandemic when the nation is at a heightened state of alert in terrorism,” Mr Elliott said.
