ARMED police launched an early morning raid on a town centre home after reports that a man had been seen with a gun.

Officers surrounded the semi-detached house in Chester Street, Leigh five hours after receiving a report from a witness who took down a car registration number after claiming to have seen a gunman on Leigh's Asda store car park around 11.30pm last Thursday.

The drama then turned to trauma for local couple Moira Farrell and Graham Leishman.

Still shocked from the 4.30am raid on their home, Ms Farrell described what happened.

She told The Journal: "My partner works in sales and finished work around 9.30pm. He called at Asda for a bottle of wine for us to drink with our evening meal. We ate the meal, drank the wine and went to bed.

"At 4.30am we heard banging on the door, Graham looked through the window and saw a police van and several officers."

Moira said armed officers were in the street and they told Graham to get dressed, asked if anyone else was in the house and searched the house and Graham's car.

"hey went through the house, everything -- it was awful. They searched the car also and brought dogs in after finding air weapons belonging to my 13 year-old son who fortunately wasn't here at the time. She said: "They took the guns away and Graham underwent further questioning. The next day they brought the guns back and were told there would be no further questioning. But I was disgusted by what happened, Graham had done nothing -- I think an apology from the police would have been in order."

A police spokesman said: "At 4.30am on Friday April 27 police entered premises in Chester Street, Leigh under Section 46 of the Firearms Act after a witness reported seeing a man with a gun on the car park at Asda in Kirkhall Lane, Leigh. The male occupant was duly advised as to his conduct." The spokesman said no formal complaint had been received following their search.