A mother-of-three was almost blinded when she was shot in the face with a pistol.

Amanda Graves, 40, had a pellet lodged in her head for five days after it was fired from an air gun.

The attack in Worthing town centre came just days into a month-long gun amnesty launched across Sussex.

Mrs Graves had been walking along Anne Street last Wednesday at about 8pm when she felt a sudden pain by her left eye.

Thinking she had been hit by a stone, she went into the nearby Warwick pub, where staff helped her clean up the wound.

It was not until she went to Worthing Hospital yesterday morning because of the pain, that doctors removed the air gun pellet.

Doctors said she was lucky the pellet, which embedded itself less than 1in from her eye, did not blind her.

The part-time cleaner, from Shandon Road, said today: "At first I didn't know I had been shot. I just thought someone had kicked a stone at me.

"It was only when the lump on my face didn't go down that a friend had a good look at it and and said she thought I had been shot.

"In retrospect, I should have known it couldn't have been just a stone because it hurt so much.

"I am still shocked about it. You don't expect anything like that to happen in Worthing.

"It has made me more wary about walking in Worthing on my own when it is dark."

PC Trevor Cox said the incident demonstrated the importance of the gun amnesty.

He said: "This lady was extremely lucky not to have been hit in the eye and left permanently injured.

"I would urge anyone who knows who was responsible for the assault to contact me at Worthing police station.

"I would appeal to people who have air weapons at their homes or whose children own replica or ball-bearing guns that they no longer want or need, to hand them in to the police before their own child or someone else is injured."

People can hand in illegal or unwanted guns to nine designated police stations across Sussex including Worthing and Chichester.