A GROUP of youngsters had to take cover after one of them was attacked with a firearm. Apprentice bathroom fitter Dexter Crowson, 18, was left bleeding from a head wound while he and his teenage friends crouched behind a car for fear of other shots.

Mr Crowson was about to change to go swimming with four friends off the pier at Abraham’s Bosom, North Side, Vale, when he was struck by a pellet just inches from his right eye.

‘I felt a huge lump straight away,’ said Mr Crowson.

‘My friends and I all huddled by the side of the car in case we got fired at again.

‘I was very shocked to learn I’d been shot at.’

He said that after sheltering from further attacks, he and his friends got into a pal’s car.

‘That’s when my mate turned to me and told me I had blood running down my face,’ he said.

‘At first I just thought it could have been a stone or something, but at the hospital I saw the X-ray and they told me it was a pellet from an air rifle. The worst pain was when they removed it from my head.

‘It was only inches away from my eye – I’m lucky it wasn’t closer.’

Mr Crowson, who lives with his mother in the Vale, said that he didn’t see anyone with a weapon and that it was busy at the time with festival-goers heading to the Vale Earth Fair.

After being driven home by friend Dan Woodward, who was visiting for the week from the UK, he told his mother that he had been shot at.

‘I don’t think she believed me at first,’ he said.

‘I think she thought I was joking, and had just fallen off my pushbike or something.’

But Mr Crowson’s mother, Julie Clarke, 40, said she flew off the settee when she realised what had happened.

‘I looked at his head and it was pouring with blood,’ she said. ‘The lump was the size of an egg.’

At first Mr Crowson refused to go to hospital, cleaning the wound himself.

But Mrs Clarke insisted, telephoning police before taking her son to A&E. He spent around two hours being treated and was given medication to prevent the wound becoming infected.

‘It was every mother’s worst nightmare to have that happen,’ she said.

‘The pellet was so close to his skull.’

Police closed off sections of North Side to secure public safety.

‘Now that this has happened, I am worried about him going out,’ added Mrs Clarke.

‘He’s been with me all day today, feeling sick. It’s unlike Dexter to do that. He likes to be out with his mates.’

Speaking yesterday, Mr Crowson said that the swelling had gone down a lot, but that he had been awake for most of Sunday night feeling unwell after the attack had occurred.

‘You don’t expect to see that happen, especially over here,’ he said.

‘I don’t even know anyone who’s got an air rifle.’

Gun crimes have high profile in the UK, with a number of arrests made in connection with the murder of 11-year-old Rhys Jones, who died from gunshot wounds sustained in a north Liverpool pub car park last Wednesday.

And just last week, a local woman was left scared and injured after being shot by a BB-type gun in Town.

Guernsey Police Acting Inspector Clare Bonsall said that a man had been released on bail pending further enquiries in connection with the North Side incident and a weapon retrieved from the suspect’s house.

Police are appealing for witnesses.