DOZENS of Muslim pupils were given ham pizza for their school dinner, even though their religion forbids them from eating pig meat.

Education bosses have been criticised for the "disgusting" error at St James' Church of England Primary School, Oozebooth Terrace, Blackburn.

The school has apologised and stressed the embarrassing menu mix-up was an "isolated incident."

Muslim pupils make up 99.5 per cent of the 381 children on roll and were served the ham pizza sticks for lunch on Thursday.

One Muslim parent whose son and daughter attend the school, has demanded a guarantee that there is never a repeat of the incident. She said: "What next, will they be serving up bacon?"

"It is disgusting. I only found out they had eaten ham as when my children complained of feeling sick. I checked with the school what they had eaten for dinner and they said pizza. But because of a mix up with ordering instead of the usual cheese and tomato pizza they accidentally served ham pizza.

"The school has apologised but that is not good enough. Children will eat anything put in front of them but the eating of ham is forbidden in Islam and if they had found out there would have been a riot."

The Koran bars Muslims from eating pork and considers pigs to be unclean.

It is not known how many pupils ate the pizza but Blackburn with Darwen Council, the education authority, stressed that the "majority" of the 76 pizza sticks were not eaten.

Executive member for education, Coun Dave Hollings said: "St James is a self managed school so responsibility for the provision and serving of lunchtime meals lies with the head teacher.

"I've spoken with the head teacher, who assures me that staff at the school are stringent in checking food content labels as part of their daily routine, but on this occasion the pizza sticks slipped through the net.

"The school is now looking to see if further measures can be introduced to make sure this type of thing does not happen again and would like to apologise to the youngsters and their parents who have been upset by this isolated incident."

Salim Mullla, the secretary of the Lancashire Council of Mosques said: "The school staff and headteacher should be aware of the needs of Muslims and food is a very important part of that. If ham has been eaten then that is diabolical and there can be no excuse for that.

"These things should be checked and monitored thoroughly and there needs to be an investigation to stop it ever happening again."