An eight-year-old boy sparked a major emergency in Tolworth when he ran out of his school in the middle of the day, climbed up a tree and refused to move.

Two fire engines, an ambulance and a police car were called to King Charles Road at 1.30pm yesterday after the boy, a year four pupil at Our Lady Immaculate primary school, stubbornly repeated that he was not coming down until his mum arrived.

Sister Josephine Goggin, headteacher at the school said the boy, who has not been named, had not been the school's responsibility at the time that he ran off.

She said: "His mother had brought him back to the school after an appointment in the morning. For various complicated reasons, he then ran away from the school building whilst in his mother's charge.

"His mother didn't want to miss the hospital appointment she had booked for his sister in the afternoon so she left for the hospital and asked the school to call the police."

One teacher who was going off-duty at the time followed the boy, who had run along the busy Ewell Road and climbed up a tree at the junction of King Charles Road.

The boy told firemen from Wimbledon and Surbiton stations, who quickly arrived on the scene, that he was not coming down until his mum arrived.

A spokeswoman for Kingston police said: "Officers watching the incident on CCTV could see his head bobbing up and down in the tree every now and again."

After nearly an hour of fruitless negotiations, a fireman donned a harness, climbed up the tree and brought the boy down. He was unhurt and taken by police officers to meet his mum at Kingston Hospital.

A parent, who did not wish to be named, said she was surprised to hear of the incident as she had never had any safety concerns for her child while at the school.