REPORTS that a man had been seen with a gun hundreds of yards from a school triggered a major police operation in Poole.

The police helicopter, armed officers and sniffer dogs descended on Moorland Way, in Poole, after a man was allegedly seen with a weapon on Friday.

Police shut the road for several hours from around 11am to carry out the raid on a bungalow, also home to the Otterdene Picture Framing Studio business.

Children from Upton Infant School, in Guest Road, returning from a trip out had to use another entrance and Wilts & Dorset had to divert its bus routes.

A resident of Pinewood Road said: “It was quite frightening actually.

“From my first-floor window I could see half-a-dozen police come running up with their guns.

A woman from Moorland Crescent, opposite the bungalow, said she saw the police vehicles in its driveway later on.

“I heard it started when someone saw something suspicious going on,” she said.

“I didn’t take a lot of notice until my son phoned to ask what was going on. I looked out and police were all over the place.”

A mum, from Moorland Crescent, saw the armed response as she walked home from the shops on the corner of Dorchester Road.

“A policeman told me to go inside and not to come out until they had gone,” she said.