A TEENAGER has been arrested after schools in Hampshire were targeted as part of a hoax bomb threat.

County schools were among 400 sent "malicious" emails which said a bomb would be detonated on school grounds if money was not handed over.

It was sent to the schools across England, which caused some to evacuate students as a precaution.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) has confirmed a teenager has been arrested in connection with the offence.

A NCA spokesman said: "Hertfordshire police officers, working as part of an NCA-led investigation, arrested a 19-year-old man in Watford on suspicion of blackmail and making malicious communications relating to the hoax bomb threat that closed hundreds of UK schools this week.

"We understand parents’ and teachers’ concerns but stress there was no credible threat to the emails schools received. However we are taking the communications extremely seriously.

"As this is now a live investigation we are unable to comment further.”

Hampshire Constabulary said schools in the county and Isle of Wight were among those targeted in this week's incident.

But the force says it is treating the email as a hoax.

Hampshire police did not advise schools in the county to evacuate.

At the time, a spokeswoman said: "We are aware of a malicious email which has been sent to a number of schools in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight this morning.

"The malicious email is being treated as a hoax.

"We are not advising schools to evacuate.

"The reports are being investigated nationally as part of a wider series across the country."

A spokeswoman for Hampshire County Council confirmed a number of its schools had been targeted.

However, the council was unable to say which schools had received the hoax email.

Police forces in Cumbria, Cambridgeshire, Humberside, Hertfordshire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Avon and Somerset and Northumbria Police say schools in their areas have all received the threat.

Humberside Police said counter-terrorism colleagues had advised that the threats were not "credible".

Both the Home Office and the Department for Education, meanwhile, advised any school that receives the email to contact their local police force