12-year-old boy shot by BB gun or air rifle

EXCLUSIVE by TOM JACKSON

A 12-YEAR-OLD boy was shot on the forehead as he cycled through a housing estate on his way to school.

The student was cycling through Eastwood Avenue, March, on his way to the Neale-Wade Community College on Thursday (October 11), when he was struck by what is believed to be a bullet from a BB gun or air rifle.

The boy said: "I was biking to school, the same as any other day with two friends and, as I got down Eastwood Avenue, I started going dizzy, my head started stinging and I couldn't see properly.

"One of my friends said 'what have you done to your head, you've got a big lump' and at first I didn't know anything about it.

"I got to school and went straight to the medical room and they gave me an anti-bacterial wipe to wipe the blood off my head, and an ice pack to make the swelling go down.

"There was nobody else near us at the time, so it must have been someone hanging out of a window."

The first the boy's mum knew of the incident was when he returned home from school at the end of the day.

She said: "There have been a few incidents of children lobbing conkers out of buses, but when his father got home he looked at it and said it was a shot wound - and I was mortified. If that was an inch-and-a-half lower it could have taken his eye out.

"People think they're toys and do not realise what damage they can inflict. In the wrong hands they are very dangerous."

A police spokesman said: "Officers were called at 4.50pm on October 11 to reports that a boy had been wounded. It's believed he was fired at with a BB gun or air-rifle causing a head injury.

"The incident is being treated as actual bodily harm and house to house enquiries will form part of the investigation.

"We would like to appeal for witnesses who may have seen anything suspicious in the Eastwood Avenue area between 8am and 8.45am on October 11.