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Suspect package destroyed at Man United stadium was training device
A suspicious package destroyed by a bomb disposal team after prompting the evacuation of Manchester United's stadium on Sunday was a fake device accidentally left behind after a training exercise, police said.
16 May 2016, 7:36am
Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
1 min read
A police dog after the match was abandoned
Two of the Old Trafford stands were evacuated about 20 minutes before the scheduled kickoff of the Premier League game against Bournemouth at 1400 GMT when the item was found in the toilets at the ground. The match was called off soon afterwards and the whole 75,000-seater stadium cleared.
TV footage showed fire engines arriving at the stadium, one of the world's most famous football grounds.
Police used sniffer dogs to search the area before calling in an army bomb disposal unit which carried out a controlled explosion on the item they described as being "an incredibly realistic-looking explosive device".
"Following today’s controlled explosion, we have since found out that the item was a training device which had accidentally been left by a private company following a training exercise involving explosive search dogs," Assistant Chief Constable John O’Hare from Greater Manchester Police said in a statement.
