AN investigation is under way into how a junior school was left without power after its main electricity cable was vandalised.

Pupils at Somerlea Junior School, in Somercotes, had an unexpected day away from lessons yesterday after someone cut the cable to the school.

Derbyshire Police are looking into the incident, which happened between 7.30pm on Monday evening and 6.30am yesterday morning, and resulted in a small fire which burnt itself out.

Staff arriving at the school found no power and had to start contacting the 250 pupils to prevent them from turning up to lessons.

After extensive repairs, electricity was restored to the school yesterday afternoon at about 2pm.

A school spokeswoman said: "It is lessons as normal today after the interruption of yesterday. We needed to be sure the school had warmed up."