They saw off competition from Calderside Academy, Blantyre; Hyland Secondary School, Glasgow; Dalmeny Primary School and Portree Primary School from the Isle of Skye.

As was previously reported in the Herald, the pupils Eilidh Maclachlan, Liam Reid, Chloe Coutts and Marc Wallace, won the regional finals that were held in Meldrum Academy in March.

This meant they represented Aberdeenshire last week in the national finals which were held at the competitions sponsors Bank of Scotland Corporate's headquarters on The Mound in Edinburgh, in the presence of the charity's president HRH The Princess Royal and 120 guests including the Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini.

The Kemnay Primary pupils delivered a ten minute presentation on the topic of Justice in Our Communities, with Liam and Eilidh speaking and Mark and Chloe handling IT duties including a PowerPoint display. They ended their presentation with an innovative rap song highlighting the topic.

The group's presentation, which they worked on with input from local Grampian Police officers, concentrated on youth crime in the community, identifying the problems and suggesting possible solutions.

The judging panel was chaired by High Court judge Lord Brailsford, who said that the selection process had been very difficult, but felt that Kemnay's "dramatic and innovative performance" had won the day.

Group member Liam Reid told the Herald: "We had to base it on crime in Kemnay. We did have some help but we mainly used our own words and I think that is why we won."

Kemnay Primary School head teacher Anne Laing said: "We are enormously proud of the pupils for this wonderful achievement."

Victim Support Scotland's Head of Communications and Fundraising, David Sinclair, said: "It was an immense performance for a young team, the standard of which stunned even our judges, and Lord Brailsford, the Chair of the judging panel highlighted that they won on the day on the basis of the dramatic content they portrayed in such an innovative way."