Outraged parents who threatened to remove their children from a Poole special school after "dangerous" metal spikes appeared on a roof, have been proved right.

They feared the deterrent at Longspee School, Canford Heath, would backfire and that quickly proved to be the case.

The rows of spikes which appeared after half-term did not prevent determined pupils at the school from climbing onto the single-storey flat roof, but just made it harder to get them down.

Within a day the school and local authority had admitted they were a mistake and the next morning they were removed.

Longspee School, which has 34 pupils aged five to 14 with behavioural, social and emotional difficulties, including some with attention deficit hyperactive disorder and some with autism, hit the headlines recently when it failed its Ofsted and was put into special measures.

"No other school in Poole has these spikes, but it's ok for children with special needs because they don't matter," said one mum.

Another parent said: "It's a disgrace. I'm not sending him there again until they take it down. This is a prison, it's not a school for children with disabilities."

Another mum, whose son has climbed onto the roof, agreed something needed to be done but advocated tackling the behaviour of children who would see it as a challenge, getting the police and fire service in to talk to them.

"I am glad they're being taken down quickly before someone does get hurt," she said. "They realised scary tactics like that are not going to work."

Stuart Twiss, head of children and young people's services, Borough of Poole, said the measure was tried with the agreement of the governing body to prevent a small number of children climbing onto the roof.

"Regrettably, the deterrents put in place over half-term have not worked and we have taken the immediate decision with the school to remove the measures as soon as possible," he said.

"We will be consulting with pupils and parents on a range of approaches to ensure children no longer have the chance to put themselves at risk by gaining access to the school roof."