 HUNDREDS of schoolchildren and students across Merseyside walked out of lessons yesterday and marched in protest against war in Iraq. Around 150 pupils left Calderstones School at 11am and marched into Liverpool city centre. They were joined by girls from St Julie's RC High School in Woolton and later by students from the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University and Liverpool College. The group of 250 protesters held a sit down protest outside Lime Street station at 2pm, blocking traffic and causing tailbacks through the Queen-sway Tunnel from Birkenhead. The march moved through the city before a second sit down protest of around 60 people was held at the top of Church Street. By 5.30pm a second group of 250 protesters again blocked Lime Street for 30 minutes. The demonstration then moved to the Strand where protesters laid down behind the Liver Building and held a two minute's silence. Dane Farrington, 16, from Calder-stones School defied demands to remain in lessons. He said: "This is something I felt was important. Innocent people are going to be killed so I wasn't going to listen to my teachers." Calderstones School headteacher Brian Davies said he would take disciplinary action against the pupils involved but there were no planned expulsions or suspensions. He said: "A minority of pupils have taken this as an opportunity to truant from school when they have no deeply held convictions on the Iraq situation." Pupils at the protest said they learnt of the action from leaflets handed out by Stop the War Coalition campaigners. Liverpool City Council's executive member for education Paul Clein, along with Labour leader Joe Anderson, last night said: "Elected members of the city council are extremely concerned that children have been encouraged by outsiders to leave school in order to protest. "Whilst fully supporting the right of young people to be socially aware and make their views known, this form of protest is potentially irresponsible at best, and could be extremely dangerous." But Carmel Brown of the Mersey-side Stop The War Coalition insisted pupils had protested spontaneously. She said: "If schoolchildren in Britain want to stand up for the rights of their contemporaries in Iraq then we should applaud them." | 
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