A MAN who was shot after arming himself with a knife and hammer and confronting a gang in the street, has been jailed for two years.

Bolton Crown Court heard how Jon Robinson needed hospital treatment to remove shotgun pellets after the shooting in Lindfield Drive, Halliwell, last month.

Robinson, who has a lengthy criminal record for violence, pleaded guilty to affray and possessing the hammer and knife.

Darren Preston, prosecuting, told how, in the early hours of November 7, residents heard two loud bangs and when CCTV footage from the area was examined it showed three men getting out of a car and one of them pulling a shotgun from a bag and shooting towards 35-year-old Robinson.

He said residents had heard shouting and then two bangs, which they first thought were due to fireworks, before the men ran off.

"The CCTV shows this defendant arriving at the scene, apparently anticipating violence as he was acting aggressively and was armed, in one hand, with a knife and the other with a hammer," said Mr Preston.

"He was eventually confronted by three males who arrived in a car.

"One of them appears to be trying to calm him down or perhaps argue with him but the other removed a shotgun from a carrier bag and pointed it at the defendant, before apparently discharging it.

"Whether that shot hit him can't be seen but it resulted in him running at the men."

Robinson, of Louisa Street, Halliwell, chased the men away before he returned to the car, smashed it with a hammer and then strolled off.

The court heard that shotgun pellets had hit Robinson in the arm and back and when he was arrested two days later at his home his blood-stained clothing was recovered and blood was found in the bath.

Robinson was questioned by police after being treated in hospital for pellet wounds and claimed an "Asian kid" had turned up at his house carrying a hammer and knife and saying he was going to go and meet some men.

Robinson, who had only been released from prison days earlier, alleged he took the weapons from the boy and went on his behalf.

"He said it wasn't his fight and he didn't know the other side would have a gun," said Mr Preston, who added that Robinson claimed to attack the car so the gang could not use it to run him over.

Mark Friend, defending, told the Honorary Recorder of Bolton, Judge Martin Walsh: "When the defendant was arrested he asserted himself to be a victim. That is not an uncommon assertion to be made by a victim but, perhaps unusually in what I submit is an unusual case, the defendant was right.

"He was both victim and offender."

But Judge Walsh commented that he found Robinson's explanation for being in the street "hard to accept".

"It rather looks as if there was some sort of dispute here, the origin of which the court is probably not going to be able to get to the bottom of," he said.

Mr Friend stressed that the weapons Robinson brandished did not harm anyone and he suffered a "significant" injury himself.

"Your Honour may feel there is an element of mercy to be applied to the sentence which must be imposed as a consequence of what might be described as the insult of prosecution in these circumstances added to the injury caused during the course of him being shot," Mr Friend asked Judge Walsh.

The court heard that a man has been charged with attempted murder but Robinson, who has had links to organised crime, is not assisting police with their investigation.