A teenager who spiked cookery lesson brownies with cannabis has been expelled after he and four schoolchildren who ate them were taken to hospital.

The 14-year old pupil at All Saints College in Newcastle gave the brownies to four other pupils in his year nine class.

He allegedly took the Class B drug into school and then added it to the cake mix during a home economics lesson.

The pupil responsible for the prank is thought to have shared the brownies with four other pupils, and all were taken to accident and emergency for checks.

A sixth boy was also taken to hospital, but was subsequently found not to have eaten any of the brownies.

All of the pupils were later discharged having suffered no ill-effects from the spiked cakes.

One boy was later arrested by police and bailed.

The four boys were suspended, and the pupil responsible for the prank expelled from the school.

A parent of one of the boys said his son did not take it seriously when he was told the brownies were laced with cannabis.

He told the Evening Chronicle newspaper, "My son swears this student told the rest of them what he had done but they didn't believe him and ate it thinking he was joking."

The school said it took such incidents very seriously.

A Northumbria Police spokesman said, "At 10.32am on Friday May 18 police received information that a student had taken cannabis into a class at All Saints College on West Denton Way.

"Six children were initially thought to have been affected and were taken to the Royal Victoria Infirmary as a precaution before being discharged the same day.