More than a dozen teenagers ended up in hospital after downing a potentially lethal batch of sleeping tablets.

The 14 youngsters, who were all from the same school, are understood to have obtained the prescribed drugs after a pupil took them into school and gave them to his classmates.

The teenagers, aged between 14 and 15 from Norham Community Technical College, North Shields, Tyneside, were taken to North Tyneside Hospital after swallowing the drugs.

Police were alerted after a number of parents contacted them to say they were worried their children were showing signs of having taken drugs.

The incident came less than a week after seven teenagers from nearby Howdon, Wallsend, were left fighting for their lives after downing a cocktail of anti-depressants, cannabis and alcohol.

Chief Inspector Derek Scott said: "We can confirm this incident involves 14 children and a quantity of relatively mild sleeping tablets. We took a couple of calls on Tuesday evening and, obviously, by that time the youngsters had started suffering the effects of taking the tablets.

"We are very concerned that 14 youngsters have ended up in hospital after taking these prescribed drugs. Although the drugs were a fairly mild sedative, the youngsters were not to know that, and this could have been an extremely serious incident."

The Norham Community Technical College pupils were released from hospital late on Tuesday night.