A TOTAL of 66 serious gun crimes were recorded across Lancashire last year, according to new figures released by the Home Office.

The data has prompted action from Crimestoppers to launch an initiative to educate the community about the increasing danger guns pose.

The Anti-Gun Crime campaign, running from Monday will include a poster campaign informing the public about the widespread impact of gun crime.

The week-long drive will see educational leaflets and resource packs being handed to local schools to teach kids how gun crime can devastate communities.

A number of high-profile shootings have shocked communities in East Lancashire over recent months.

Last July Blackburn bouncer John Hoban suffered a collapsed lung after being peppered with 90 shotgun pellets in the chest, lungs, heart, face and arms outside Barlife bar in Northgate.

Mr Hoban, 40, survived but was left with pellets still lodged in the muscle of his heart, which could work themselves free and rupture an artery, with fatal consequences, at any time.

In April a judge gave 42-year-old Mark Elliott, of Stone Hill Drive, Blackburn, a life sentence for the shooting.

In January Burnley shopkeeper Babar Naseem was shot with a pellet gun six times as he tried to fight off masked raiders at his off licence.

Doctors removed five pellets from Mr Naseem's flesh after the attack in Oasis off licence in Halifax Road, Brierfield.

And last month two Burnley teenagers sparked a gun alert when teachers spotted them at the gates of Walton High in Nelson, with what appeared to be a pistol.

Teachers called police and the boys, aged 13 and 14, were arrested. The gun turned out to be a BB pellet gun.

Police in East Lancashire operate their own anti-gun crime initiative called "Stop having fun with guns: Don't be a target". They have welcomed the Crimestoppers initiative.

A spokesman said: "What we're trying to do through our armed response unit is to educate teenagers to the dangers of carrying imitation firearms.

"The difficulty we have is that officers often don't know whether a gun is real or a fake and so we have to treat each incident seriously. That takes officers away from dealing with other situations.

"Gun crime isn't a big problem in Lancashire. Luckily we don't have the drive-by shootings they have in Liverpool or Manchester."

Crimestoppers runs a phone line through which people can report details of crime anonymously and help take guns off the streets without fear of reprisals. The charity never asks for callers' names and never records or traces calls.