Parents have been warned to be careful of their child’s online behaviour after a UK mum says her eight-year-old son ordered a loaded AK-47 to their house.

Barbara told Express.co.uk about how her son got learned how to hack online from a young age – initially ordering pizza to their house for free, before having the fully automatic gun online delivered to her home as part of an online challenge.

Meanwhile, another young hacker tells of how he was expelled from school for breaking into their online systems after starting by simply watching YouTube.

Barbara said her son started to wake up “in the early hours to access the computer when the rest of the house was asleep.”

She added: “He was so involved in what he was doing that he had devised a coded language when speaking to people online, using phrases such as ‘Hey, Pitt is joining us.’… which meant I had entered the room and they needed to switch screens.

“Once I cracked the code, I confronted him, and at this point the physical and mental stress he had put himself under finally made him reveal that he was collaborating with an international group of hackers.”

It started with the eight-year-old ordering pizzas to the house without paying for them from a local pizza company by tricking their computers into believing the food had been paid for, with his mother growing increasingly suspicious of his activities.

But Barbara stepped in when a fully loaded rifle arrived at the front door.

Her son had ordered it from the dark web, she said – an area of the internet only accessible through certain web browsers.

She said: “I was utterly shocked at first, I just couldn’t believe my son was capable of doing such things online. Subsequently, I felt worried and decided to take the matter into my own hands by seeking help from the police and reading up about the dark web.”

“I must say I was also impressed with his technical skills,” she added.

Barbara said he did it as part of…