Parents at a local primary school have been warned abut a terrifying game which tells youngsters to kill themselves, and they have been informed by the Herefordshire Safeguarding Team what schools and parents should do.

The game, called MOMO, has been linked to the death of a 12-year-old girl in Argentina and it has emerged that a seven-year-old boy from Manchester was a victim of the harrowing challenge.

A spokesperson for Ashfield Park Primary School said: "The school, without directly referring to MOMO, will be reinforcing the importance of online safety and in particular the importance of confidently saying “no” to invitations to play games from strangers and knowing why they should not click on unidentified links."

West Mercia Neighbourhood Watch have also shared police advice about the image which is being used to torment and horrify children on messaging apps such as WhatsApp.Police say the image is being used by cyber criminals to add people on messaging services in an attempt to steal from them.But, they say it is a long-running trend that has spread across the internet in a variety of different forms.The image started life as a sculpture that was made for an art exhibit in Japan, three years ago. The model was made by a special effects company called Link Factory.But stories emerged that suggested the character was calling up people in the night and terrorising them.Recently the police have warned that people are using the image as their own profile picture and adding people on WhatsApp. They will then send messages that range from the mildly strange to the genuinely unsettling, and even dangerous.Of course, anyone is able to access the image online, add it to their WhatsApp, and add whoever they like. It means there are as many different ways of using the image as there are people doing it.The police say: "Some people may be using the picture for relatively non-malevolent – though of course still unpleasant – purposes, such as freaking out their friends in behaviour they might understand as a prank."Others might be using it for altogether more malicious purposes, such as cyber bullying or sending genuinely concerning messages, with reported examples of a child being told to hold a knife to their throat or having their family threatened."In all instances, advice from cyber security experts is the same: be careful about anyone that might add you, or children you are responsible for, on WhatsApp, whether or not they are using the image.