A 12-year-old who brought a knife to school has faced court.

The boy, who has already been expelled from the Merton secondary school where the incident happened, was handed a referral order by magistrates.

Chair of the bench at Wimbledon Youth Court last Thursday, January 26, said: "This is a very, very serious offence... Somebody could have grabbed [the knife], you could have been jostled, you could have stabbed someone."

The weapon, a kitchen knife with a three inch blade, was spotted by a teacher when it fell out of the boy's pocket in a corridor. Legal restrictions mean neither the child, who is from Mitcham, or the school can be identified.

The boy's dad told the court he was a well behaved child who got on with his homework and was not normally in trouble at school.

It heard that after he was arrested, the boy told the police he taken the knife from his kitchen into his bedroom to try and fix his mobile phone.

He said that when he heard his mum coming up the stairs he hid the blade in his jacket pocket because he knew she would be angry he was playing with it - and then forgot about it until it fell from his pocket in school.

But the officer interviewing the child questioned this story.

The boy, who had been at the school for less than a year, pleaded guilty to possessing a bladed article in school and was given a nine-month referral order that will see his behaviour monitored.

Earlier this month a Merton Council report suggested knife crime in the borough involving under-18s had risen significantly from 2009/10 to 2010/11.

Responding to the report councillor Jeff Hanna, chairman of the council's children and young people's scrutiny panel, said: "We do well to remember Merton is relatively safe. So are our schools and the vast majority of our young people are a credit to their families and those schools."