A BOY has miraculously missed being blinded after being shot in the face.

The 15-year-old, who has not been named, was walking along Cleveland Street, in Eston, near Middlesbrough, on Monday, when he felt a sudden, severe pain in his eye.

Medical staff at Middlesbrough General Hospital told him he had an airgun pellet lodged in his eye socket, only millimetres from the eye.

The attack came less than a month after Home Secretary David Blunkett announced that carrying a replica gun or air weapon in a public place without a good reason would be made illegal.

The shooting at Eston is the latest in a spate of incidents across the North-East.

They include the death of 14-year-old Matthew Sheffield, who was shot in the head when a prank in the garden of his home in Eaglescliffe, near Stockton, went wrong last year.

Nicola Distin, 15, lost the sight in one eye following an airgun attack in Gateshead, in November 2001.

A pellet went through her eyelid and lodged itself in her skull.

MPs and a judge in the region have called for tougher controls which will, when introduced, raise the age limit for acquiring and using an air weapon without adult supervision from 14 to 17.

l Anyone who can help police about the attack in Eston is asked to call (01642) 301926.