A YOUNG couple living in a normal surburban street in Heysham discovered a bomb in their back yard this week.

Residents in 40 homes in Crofters Fold had to be evacuated as the police bomb squad speeded their way up from Liverpool to explode the homemade device.

The suspect device was found by Andrea and Alex Winter in the small hours of Tuesday morning.

A police spokesman explained how the full horror of the find dawned on the policemen who first answered the routine call. "Our officers didn't really know what to expect but I imagine that they never thought it was an actual bomb. They soon saw that it looked potentially very dangerous and immediately called in the experts.

"We can absolutely discount any terrorist connections although we are treating the incident as suspicious. We can say the device could potentially have caused damage and our experts are trying to piece together what it actually was. Basically there was a small drum with bits of wire coming out of it."

Other policemen confirmed that the device could have caused death or serious injury if it had exploded.

Meanwhile neighbours told of their total disbelief that such a crime could have occurred on the pleasant, neighbourly estate. Said one neighbour who asked not to be named: "I don't really know the couple but they always seemed perfectly quiet and nice. You just can't believe something like this would happen anywhere but especially not in a place like this. It was no trouble being asked to leave our home for a while. I don't think anybody really minded. It was more the shock that anything like that could happen at all."

Police are conducting door-to-door enquiries in the area. Paramedics and firefighters were on stand by for hours as the bomb squad made sure the area was safe.

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