The head teacher of junior school has publicly defended his decision to allow children as young as eight to participate in a clay pigeon shooting activity in which they fired shotguns at disks on the school premises in Eastbourne, East Sussex.

Police have arrested 18 people in a series of raids targeting organised crime across Hertfordshire and Gloucestershire. Officers recovered a gun, a suspected stolen motorbike, class A and B drugs, offensive weapons and a dog of a prohibited breed in the searches.

Armed police were dispatched after a member of the public reported a man brandishing a gun from the window of a house in Liverpool, Merseyside. After officers surrounded the property and detained the suspect outside, they discovered that the gun was in fact a games console gun-shaped controller. The suspect had not been playing the game at the time of the incident however, and was given advice before being released without charge.

A 19-year-old student was robbed by two masked men with what appeared to be a gun on a street in Winchester, Hampshire. He was threatened by the pair as he was walking in the town, and they forced the victim to hand over his smartphone and money before escaping on foot. No one was injured in the attack and a 16-year-old male has been arrested on suspicion of robbery.

Two men with a knife and a gun threatened staff at a post office in a residential area of Sheffield, South Yorkshire. The pair, who were wearing motorbike helmets and had covered their shoes, escaped with an undisclosed amount of cash leaving the victims shaken but uninjured.

A cat has been shot in the stomach at close range with an airgun in Minster-in-Thanet, Kent. The pellet tore a 3-inch wound in her abdomen and she required multiple surgeries to treat the injury.

A cat has had to have her front leg amputated after being shot with an airgun in Kilmarnock, Scotland. She was rescued by the Scottish SPCA but her leg bone was shattered by the pellet and had to be removed. She has not yet been claimed by her owner.

Karl Bough has been jailed for five years for using an imitation firearm to threaten a bus driver and supermarket security guards during a number of incidents in the West Midlands. He held the gun to the bus driver's head and pulled the trigger after he was told his ticket was invalid. He then threatened security guards with a Stanley knife when they asked him to return to a supermarket in which he activated the alarm. Later that day he was confronted by security guards at a different supermarket who noticed alcohol with a security tag in his pocket and Bough pointed the gun at them so they took cover behind a car and he was able to escape. He was later identified from the bus CCTV footage and arrested.

A man has been shot in the head on a street in Liverpool, Merseyside. He reported to hospital with gunshot wounds about 20 minutes after shots were heard in one area of the city. The victim received treatment for his non-life threatening injuries, and two 19-year-old men were later arrested on suspicion of possessing a firearm.

An 11-year-old boy has been injured in a suspected airgun shooting in Luton, Bedfordshire. He felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck as he was walking home, where he discovered he had sustained a puncture wound that was bleeding.