A MAYOR has told a court how she saw a gun being pointed out of a car in a busy high street.

The Mayor of Bromley, Cllr Pauline Tunnicliffe, was a witness in the trial of three men accused of threatening a young black man with a shotgun.

Two of the defendants, father and son Colin, 60, and Lewis Blows, 18, are also accused of racially abusing 21-year-old Joseph Francis outside the Walnuts Shopping Centre in Orpington High Street, on December 10 last year.

Cllr Tunnicliffe told the trial at Croydon Crown Court that she had been shopping with her 11-year-old daughter and one of her friends when she heard a commotion.

She said she heard someone call the victim an obscene name and saw two men chase the victim up the High Street towards Priory Gardens.

Cllr Tunnicliffe called 999 to alert the police before speaking to members of shop staff about what they had witnessed.

She said: “One of the women in the doorway of the shop said very clearly ‘Oh my God, he’s got a gun'.”

Cllr Tunnicliffe said she turned around and saw one of the men she had seen earlier pointing a black object that looked like a gun out of the window of a dark blue Land Rover Discovery as it drove towards Orpington War Memorial.

Another witness, Ian Holden, told the trial that he had seen an agitated young man pull a shotgun out of a Land Rover in nearby White Hart Road.

A shotgun matching the description that was found at the home of Colin and Lewis Blows in State Farm Avenue, Orpington, was shown to the jury.

The Blows and their co-defendant, Daniel Hoath, 19, of Lloyds Way, Beckenham, deny possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.

Colin and Lewis Blows further deny one count of affray.

The trial continues.

Full story in next week’s Bromley Extra