A GOOD Samaritan sparked a major alert when he walked into a police station carrying a bomb.

Police officers sounded the alarm when the well-meaning member of the public handed over the 2ft device.

The man said he had picked up the device after watching a group of children kicking it around a school playing field.

Hundreds of workers had to be evacuated from Middlesbrough town centre as a precaution.

Many more residents were told to stay indoors and away from the windows, as bomb squad experts were called to defuse the mystery device.

Experts later identified the device as a 28lb rocket used in aircraft training.

It was handed in at the front desk of Middlesbrough police station yesterday afternoon.

The red rocket, which was complete with tail fins, had been scooped up and taken to the police station by a man when he realised what the children were playing with.

The police station was cleared of all 100 officers on duty.

Prisoners were removed from the cells.

Emergency arrangements were put into place allowing them to be transferred to other police stations across the Teesside area.

The nearby magistrates' court and associated offices were evacuated, as was the public library.

Dunning Road and residential Emily Street, behind the police station, were cordoned off with blue and white incident tape.

Residents evacuated from nearby houses were given shelter at the town hall during the 75-minute alert, as police waited for the Army experts to arrive.

Bomb disposal technicians, who travelled to Middlesbrough from Catterick, in North Yorkshire, used a machine to x-ray the device.

They identified the rocket as a dummy ordnance - a harmless fake, dating from the 1960s, which were dropped on a target to test a trainee pilot's skills.

A Cleveland Police spokesman said last night: "Police are grateful for the patience shown by people in the area through this disturbance.''