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This shocking video shows the moment a dad rams two youths off a scooter before a masked man fires a shotgun over their heads.

Paul O’Neill claimed his family were threatened by yobs after his son’s scooter was stolen and he reported it to the police.

Liverpool Crown Court heard the 50-year-old recruited an unidentified gunman and set off in his Audi after two young males.

The dad-of-two deliberately knocked them off the vehicle in Kingsheath Avenue, Knotty Ash at around 2.30pm on August 20 last year.

His accomplice jumped out and fired the gun over the youths’ heads – causing pellets to hit the wall of an unoccupied house.

Dashcam footage from a car parked in the residential street shows a white van approaching from the opposite direction.

Suddenly the two youths can be seen tumbling off a scooter as O’Neill’s Audi rams them out of a side road to the right.

The masked gunman – dressed all in black – gets out of the passenger door of the car and runs across the street.

Seconds later, a cloud of smoke and possible debris can be seen flying up in the air on the left hand side of the screen.

(Image: Handout)

The gunman runs back to the Audi, which then drives off. Afterwards, a resident emerges and a youth returns to the scooter.

The court heard he picked up the scooter and said to the shocked witness “sorry about that”, before calmly walking away.

Frank Dillon, prosecuting, said a direct hit could have been fatal and prosecutors believed the shooting was “to frighten rather than to maim”.

The concerned resident gave a description of the driver, which matched O’Neill, and noted the car’s number plate, registered to his address.

O’Neill claimed to have been the victim of a gunpoint carjacking by two men around an hour earlier in a web of lies told to police.

But officers examined CCTV footage, including a clip revealing that he then drove to a service station and withdrew cash from an ATM.

He then claimed to have been forced at gunpoint to ram the teens off the bike, before tearfully denying that the gunman was his son.

O’Neill, of Old Riding, Knotty Ash, admitted possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and dangerous driving.

Andrew Jebb, defending, said it was “unusual” that the mystery gunman wore a full disguise, but O’Neill did not conceal his identity.

He said it was the “culmination” of a series of events after his son’s scooter was stolen and police contacted.

Mr Jebb said: “Pressure was then brought to bear to ensure that no complaint was followed up and then these threats continued.”

He said O’Neill reached “the end of his tether” and made a “terrible decision” to accept the help of an armed acquaintance.

The lawyer said: “For him to snap in the way that he did and engage in this behaviour, there must have been a considerable stress upon him.”

Judge Robert Warnock jailed O’Neill for seven years, banned him from driving for six and a half years and made an order seizing his Audi.

He said: “It was a dangerous, reckless and wholly disproportionate response to the problems that you perceived you and your family were suffering.”