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A man has accidentally blasted himself in the stomach with a gun used in a spate of gangland shootings.

The bullet passed through John McAtee's stomach and lodged in his buttock.

The 23-year-old had reportedly been asked to look after a ‘hot’ revolver used in three different incidents.

But the weapon went off within seconds of him taking hold of it.

He had used a towel to pick it up so as not to leave fingerprints, but it went off, Manchester Evening News reports.

The incident happened on October 10th last year when McAtee was living in Cannon Street, off Deane Road, Bolton, and followed a series of tit-for-tat shootings in Little Hulton and Bolton .

The weapon had been dropped off at his house by a man who left after the gun fired.

(Image: Dominic Salter)

McAtee, now of Pansy Road, Farnworth, first told police he had been shot in a field by an unknown gunman - but then admitted what had happened.

Police linked the gun to an incident on October 5th when a man was shot three times on his doorstep in Coniston Avenue, Little Hulton, but survived.

It was also linked to incidents in Gorse Drive, Little Hulton, and Worsley Road, Farnworth on October 10th when shots were fired at houses but one was hurt.

At Bolton Crown Court McAtee, who had no criminal record prior to the incident, was jailed for two years after admitting possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life.

He spent four weeks in hospital after the shooting and still requires medication.

There has been a spate of shootings in Little Hulton in the last 12 months.

The most recent was just after midnight on March 9th when a gunman opened fire at a front door of a house on Gorse Drive, Little Hulton.

In November last year 13 people from Little Hulton were given banning orders in the wake of gang violence. GMP were granted the injunctions to keep people from different parts of the district associating with each other.

Salford has been blighted by two separate vicious gang wars.

One is between two groups in the Little Hulton area and another is a clash between members of an organised crime gang from Salford, called The A Team , which splintered into two, and resulted in the murder of Paul Massey.