Police swoop on students with toy guns

Armed officers swooped on a gang of gun-toting teenagers who were holding a bloody T-shirt in a dark alleyway.

But they found eight petrified Media Studies students filming coursework. The guns were toys from a sweetshop.

Members of Scotland Yard's SO19 firearms unit pounced on the students just after 2am in Barkingside, Essex, where the A-level students were finishing a film about gangsters. They were today set to visit a London police station to be interviewed. Their tape has been confiscated.

The pupils, from King Solomon high school, had been watched for an hour. Adam Langleben, 18, cowriter of the movie, said: "It was shocking. I heard, 'Get down, get down' and, 'Against the wall'. I thought my friends were joking, then saw a gun in my face, We were lucky not to be shot."

Mr Langleben said the group had not known they needed permission to film. Now he fears he will fail his A-level unless the tape is back before the mid-June course deadline.

A police spokesman said it would be given back when the investigation is completed.