ST Stanislaus’ College students have been urged to stay away from school today as Bathurst police investigate a threatening text sent to students on Thursday afternoon.
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The Western Advocate has seen the text which appears to have been sent from two students’ email accounts.
Police have cleared those students of any wrongdoing and say it appears the accounts were hacked. They are treating the emails as a hoax.
Chifley Police District crime manager Inspector Luke Rankin said police went to the school on Thursday afternoon after being informed of the threatening emails.
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“We received reports that these threats had been made to the school and detectives attended yesterday afternoon,” Inspector Rankin said.
“What we know is that two students’ accounts were hacked and we’re totally comfortable that the persons responsible for those accounts have had nothing to do with these threats.
“What we’re doing now is working to identify who hacked these accounts and we’re working with the school on that.”
Inspector Rankin said police were comfortable the threats were a hoax but officers would be regularly patrolling the area around the school on Friday.
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“Just because of the alarm this has created we have put it on our tasking sheet for the day and we will have a presence in the area,” he said.
“We’re content that this is a hoax threat that has been perpetrated through the use of hacked email accounts.
“But we are still treating the case seriously given the implications of the hoax.”
Inspector Rankin said the college executive had made the decision to close the school while police work to identify the hoaxers.
