The growing use of air weapons for irresponsible attacks on innocent people is cause for concern. Chief reporter LINDA PIPER looks at the latest incident ...

AS support grows for the News Shopper campaign for tighter controls on air weapons, a toddler and his mum narrowly escaped injury when their car was shot at by two children with an airgun.

Belvedere mum Maria Wenham, 30, and her son Jamie, aged two-and-a-half, were on their way home from Erith, last week, when the rear window was hit by an airgun pellet.

A shocked Mrs Wenham told the News Shopper the boys who fired at her looked about 12 years old. She said: "We were driving along Fraser Road. I saw the two boys, one black and one white, on the pavement. They had an airgun and laughing. The next I knew, they shot at me. I swerved and the pellet hit the back window, where Jamie was. If the window had broken, he could have been hit."

Shocked, she drove home and called the police. But once they realised no damage had been done, she was told there was little the police could do.

"I am disgusted at children doing such a thing. If it had been an old person in the car, they could have had a heart attack."

Mrs Christine Quelcutti, from New Eltham, is upset at the way police appear to treat airgun offences.

Her daughter Tracy was shot by youths with an airgun in June in a Chislehurst park.

Despite giving police the names of six witnesses, she says none have yet been questioned.

Superintendent John Powell said the law on firearms was so complicated it was sometimes difficult to enforce.

"If someone fires an airgun but there is no injury, no damage, the youth runs off and there is little description, it is hard for us to do anything," he said.

He said police take incidents involving air guns seriously but there were several legal grey areas.

"The law needs tightening and clarifying. There are powers outside the Firearms Act which we can use, such as for assault or criminal damage. I'm disturbed to hear of examples where people have been injured and the police may not have acted."

July 8, 2002 17:00