MEMBERS of a documentary crew in Liverpool had a gun pointed at them and were pelted with stones and glass bottles while filming a programme assessing the safety of British streets.

The footage to be shown on ITV1’s Tonight programme follows Home Secretary Jacqui Smith’s comments about feeling unsafe walking the streets of London at night.

Tonight also reveals a survey showing more than half of British women (56%) and more than a third of men (36%) are afraid to walk alone at night in their own neighbourhoods.

When in Liverpool, presenter Shelagh Fogarty and her crew were forced off the streets at about 9.45pm, after a man leaned out of a car in Croxteth and pointed a gun at them.

The crew were looking for a spot to film a piece to camera and a police van was parked just a little way down the street.

The night before, they were pelted with stones and glass bottles on notorious road The Strand, near Norris Green Estate, not far from where Rhys Jones, 11, was shot dead.

While Fogarty asked a few boys for permission to interview them, a crowd of more than 30 to 40 youths gathered at either end of the road.

A group then started pelting stones and glass bottles from one end of The Strand. A woman with a young child, young children playing with a ball and people coming out of a fish and chip shop were all in the vicinity.

The crews were also caught up in a knifing incident in London and a double shooting in Nottingham.

The programme’s survey, which had 3,667 respondents from across Britain, also showed three quarters of all respondents (75.3%) said they did not feel there was a high enough police presence in their area.

The programme shows three female reporters interviewing women and filming the streets on Friday and Saturday night in London, Liverpool and Nottingham.

WOMEN in Fear: Tonight is shown on ITV1 tonight at 8pm.

lizawilliams