TWO teenagers have been caught on camera firing air weapons on a North-East school's playing fields

The youths broke into Darlington's Longfield Comprehensive School fields and started shooting indiscriminately at birds with what are thought to be air rifles.

They were filmed on the school's closed circuit television system (CCTV) on the roof of the school - before they started firing at the camera.

Headteacher Keith Cotgrave went out to confront the youths, thought to be male, but they dived into bushes before pointing their rifles at him. He said they were also carrying a crossbow.

"Somebody said, there's two guys out there with guns, so I went outside to get the guns off them.

"We think they had been shooting things at Drinkfield Marsh and then managed to get on to the school field."

The incident happened at about 2pm last Thursday.

Mr Cotgrave said the youths had been caught on the school's cameras running across the school field.

The cameras are of such high quality the images have been downloaded and passed to police.

Mr Cotgrave said he thought it took about 40 minutes for police to arrive, but a spokesman for Durham Constabulary denied this and said an officer was on the scene within 15 minutes.

The officer carried out an extensive search in marshland behind the school, but failed to find any trace of the youths. He did speak to a resident who reported seeing two youths running away from the scene.

The incident follows a rise in the number of pupils arming themselves with knives in schools.

In March, three boys were excluded from schools in Darlington for taking blades into the buildings.

The police spokesman said: "We would like to appeal to anyone who saw the youths and can give us any information which may lead to their identification."

Police can be contacted on 0845 6060 365.