Southwell LIVE: Armed police descend on UK town as cordon in place in central streets

Matthew Parris, CEO of the trust that runs the schools that went into lockdown, has explained what happened as they responded to the police incident.

He said: "We brought the children in at all four schools at that point - that was as a procutionary measure whilst I contacted police to find out what was going on.

"Having had reassurances from police on the nature of the incident, we were able to have the children return to their lessons within the space of an hour.

"Our first priority is the safety and wellbeing of children - as soon as we knew it was perfectly safe, they returned to their lessons and the parents were made aware."