A PENSIONER today said he was lucky to be alive after being shot as he walked home from work.

Neil Linaker, 72, was hit in the back in North Street on Tuesday night.

"If it had hit me on the head it could have been a murder inquiry," he said.

Mr Linaker was taking his usual two-mile walk from work at Haydock Finance in the Greenbank Business Park to his house in Barrowdale Avenue when the shooting took place.

He admitted he was not sure if it was an airgun pellet or a bullet from a ball-bearing gun that struck him but said the force was so severe it made a nasty mark on his shoulder --through five layers of clothing.

Mr Linaker said he was wearing a T-shirt, shirt, fleece coat, jacket and high-visibility waistcoat.

He said: "As far as I'm concerned, this was a very serious incident.

"I felt a hard impact on my back. It was so sharp that I immediately thought I'd been hit by a bullet.

"Having realised I was still alive, I turned round and looked but there was nobody there.

"The pain was very considerable and it continued to hurt throughout the evening and yesterday morning."

Plans to restrict the sale of airguns to registered dealers were announced by the Home Office earlier this year. A new registration scheme was proposed, where dealers would be required to pay a £150 fee.

The measures have been put into the Violent Crime Reduction Bill at Westminster but critics said they did not go far enough.

A campaign for a tightening of the law followed the death of Glasgow toddler Andrew Morton in March.

Mark Bonini was jailed for life in August for murdering two-year-old Andrew in Easterhouse. The toddler died after being hit on the head by a pellet fired by the 27-year-old.

Sgt Jason Middleton said Mr Linaker had contacted them to say he had been shot in the back, leaving a small red mark.

But he said that officers had not yet been able to interview him about the incident and were due to speak to him this week.

He added that there had been no previous reports of incidents of this nature in Shadsworth.