A former pupil from the British School in Voorschoten has been arrested in connection with threatening to shoot a teacher and pupils at the school, the Telegraaf reported on Monday lunchtime.

The paper says the youth was expelled from the school in October 2011 for bad behaviour. A police spokesman declined to comment on the claim to Nos television and would not give any further details of the arrest.

The police have also dismissed Telegraaf claims that a gun was found at a school in Leiderdorp, saying it was a toy pistol.

Leiden

All secondary schools and mbo colleges in Leiden were closed on Monday after the threat was made to an internet site at the weekend.

The anonymous threat was made against an unnamed teacher and ‘as many other pupils as possible’, Leiden mayor Henri Lenferink told Nos news.

Nos states the threat was placed in English on the international website 4chan.org at the weekend and stated ‘tomorrow, I will shoot my Dutch teacher, and as many students as I can’. The author also said he or she would have a note with them when they entered the school, explaining why they were doing this.

In 2009, police in Rijsbergen arrested an 18-year-old boy who used the same website to threaten to start shooting at a school in Breda which turned out to be a hoax, nu.nl reported.