A nursery owner in China has been sentenced to death after he was convicted of creeping into a rival school and lacing salt with rat poison.

The owner of a nursery school has been detained on suspicion that he added rat poison to lunches at a rival pre-school in south-eastern China, which put 70 young children and two teachers in hospital, police said today.

Seventy nursery school children and two teachers have been taken to hospital in south-eastern China after falling ill from a school lunch of corn porridge laced with rat poison, police said today.