A WOMAN has been left afraid to walk down the road after being shot in the face with an air rifle in York, the city’s youth court heard.

Wendy Colley was walking with her husband in Acomb when she heard a loud noise and something hard struck her, said Katy Varlow, prosecuting. She was one of two people in different streets hit by shots.

The court heard that two 15-year-old boys, who cannot be named for legal reasons, were playing with an air rifle on a Sunday morning, when it went off accidentally.

Both pleaded guilty to firing an air rifle in public, assaulting a third boy, and charges of criminal damage by air rifle pellet to a car and a window.

Surgeons had to operate using local anaesthetic to remove the air rifle pellet from Mrs Colley’s head and she is now too afraid to walk down the road.

The first boy vowed in court never to touch an air rifle or other firearm again.

His solicitor, Kevin Blount, said he could have killed or blinded the woman when he discharged the air rifle out of his brother’s bedroom window without looking. He was about to hide it from his mother and did not want to leave it loaded.

Mr Blount said: “It has been brought home to him just how dangerous an air rifle can be whatever the circumstances, whatever the intention.”

The boy told justices: “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt, I am sorry.”

He admitted wounding the woman, and was given a nine-month referral order and told to pay £350 compensation to Mrs Colley, plus £246.25 to other victims.

His friend was given a six-month referral order and told to pay £246.25 compensation.

Mr Blount said the first boy had wanted to rid the family home of rats, so smuggled an air rifle into the house. But he and his friend found no rats, and instead started target practice out of his own bedroom window on a nearby tree. The third boy, car and window were hit by pellets going past the tree.

The second boy also vowed never to use an air rifle again.

His solicitor, Neal Kutte, said he had only been having a “bit of fun” when he used the rifle and wasn’t “evil”. He had learned a lesson from the court case.

Neither had been in court before.