A YOUNG girl has become the latest victim in a bizarre spate of gangster-style drive by shootings - with a paintball gun.

The ten-year-old girl was left shaken and covered in luminous paint after she was shot from a moving car in Stanley.

It is the fourth such paintball attack in the area within a week, prompting police to warn that the pranksters could cause serious injury.

Acting Det Insp Vic Deanes, of Derwentside CID, said: "Shooting someone with a paintball gun may seem like a harmless prank, but it is dangerous and we are taking this seriously.

"This weapon may look innocuous, but firing it in this manner could lead to someone suffering a serious injury."

The guns fire small, plastic pellets that burst on impact, showering their target with luminous-coloured paint.

They can cause bruising if fired from close range and police fear a head shot could seriously injure a child.

The girl was targeted as she walked down Good Street, Tanfield Lea, near Stanley, at 4pm last Thursday.

The paintball gang first struck the previous Thursday when a dark coloured car was seen to drive slowly past Joe's Fish Shop in nearby Greencroft.

Again a paintball gun was aimed out of the car and the shop's window was peppered with paint.

Later that day, two 15-year-old boys in Tanfield Lea were aimed at, the shots missing their intended targets by inches.

The hooligans also shot at a car parked outside Dipton Community Centre.

The attacks are a carbon copy of those carried out by rap megastar Eminem in his hit film Eight Mile.

Drive-by shootings first became notorious in the late Eighties in Los Angeles and have been glamorised since by gangster rap artists such as Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg and Eminem.

Police have issued an appeal for witnesses.

Anyone with information should call Stanley Police on (01207) 232144 or make a confidential call to Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.