THE headteacher of Burlington Danes Academy has played down an incident in which one of her pupils was stabbed in the neck with scissors.

Two of the Wood Lane school's students got involved in a fight with four other girls at a bus stop in nearby North Pole Road shortly after school finished on Tuesday.

But Sally Coates says the incident was "relatively minor" and allayed fears the fight was linked with the savage stabbing of a Fulham pupil at Victoria Station last week. Police have also confirmed they are not linking the attack.

The row happened on Tuesday afternoon at a bus stop just after 4pm. One of the pupils, aged 15, sustained superficial cuts to the neck after being slashed with the scissors, while her friend fought back against the attackers, hitting one of them over the head with an umbrella.

Police arrived swiftly and arrested four girls aged between 12-16, all of whom Mrs Coates says have no connection to Burlington.

She said: "Obviously tensions are running high after Victoria and it's right the police are concerned but, although any incident like this is serious, on this occasion there were no serious injuries and the girl only sustained minor cuts which didn't need stitches. She was taken to hospital only as a precaution.

"The girls who got involved are generally very good - I don't know what happened to be honest, but there's obviously some background, something unrelated to school.

"Anything like this needs to be investigated and I wouldn't rule out action against them. Fights like this are not something we would tolerate."

Police confirmed four girls were taken to custody at a West London police station and bailed to return.