That was the chilling late night email sent to Rolleston College staff and students.
Principal Rachel Skelton opened the email at 4.45am last Thursday while getting ready to go to the gym.
The email had been sent out at 11.30pm the previous night.
“It made me very alert,” Skelton said.
She immediately contacted police, who had already been made aware of the email by others who had received it.
Police were able to quickly confirm there was likely no credible threat and by 6.30am the school had sent out an email saying it was safe to come to school.
“Safety to open was my first concern because I certainly would not have opened the school if advised not to,” said Skelton.
While it was a hoax, as a precaution police kept a presence around the perimeter of the school, and some people kept their children at home.
The email contained inaccurate personal information about Skelton’s family.
“Again that made me feel that it wasn’t credible because of the things said and names used and I was like ‘hang on’,” she said.
Investigations which followed led to the possibility the email was sent after a spam link was clicked.
Part of the investigation will look at whether the email was written by a person or computer generated.
“It’s just working theory, potentially has a link been clicked on, those are the things we are working through,” Skelton said.
She said there was no indication the email was written by a student.
Coincidentally, the school had carried out a routine lockdown drill on the Wednesday.
Skelton said the school is giving support to the students and staff who received the email due to its distressing content, and will be educating students about online safety.
As part of investigating the origin of the hoax, the school is working with police, its IT provider and Network for Learning (N4L), which provides network and cyber security support to schools.
Said an N4L spokesperson: “It can be difficult to determine if emails are authentic threats or hoaxes, so if schools receive these types of emails they should immediately refer them to police.”
