BBC Radio 5 presenter threatened with a gun when testing safety of Britain's streets

BBC Radio Five presenter Shelagh Fogarty today described her terror at having a gun pointed at her face while filming in Liverpool on Saturday night.

The breakfast show host was taking part in a special programme for the ITV1 Tonight programme to find out how safe Britain's streets are, to be aired tonight.

While filming in Norris Green, an area of her home town Liverpool, a car slowed down as it past her, wound down a window and a gun was pointed directly at her.

She believes had it not been for the sound of a police siren nearby and a CCTV van in the road, she may have been killed.

Shelagh also revealed a gang of 40 thugs pelted her with glass bottles and stones in a frightening attack the previous night.

She said on her breakfast show: "I had quite a horrible, and difficult weekend really.

"I was in Liverpool filming a programme regarding Jacqui Smith's comments about not feeling safe on the streets on her own and testing out the theory really with how other people felt.

"On Friday night, I was speaking to a group of young people - I won't call them a gang, they were a group at this stage - and it was off camera, I was just having a chat outside a shop when all of a sudden there were 20 or more people at either end of the street penning us in.

"We had nowhere to escape to and they started throwing glass bottles at us. There was glass smashing all over the place, but the frightening thing was this happened with eight year old boys playing football nearby, women pushing their children down the street in pushchairs."

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She added: "We thought that was bad enough but then the next night was even more frightening.

"We were in this road when a car suddenly slowed right down as it passed us. A window opened and a gun came out and pointed directly at me.

"I froze and then I heard a police siren nearby, not related, but I think that might of put them off doing anything.

"There was also a CCTV van in the road, and they would of seen that, so that makes their attack even more audacious because they did it right in front of the CCTV camera."

The programme follows several celebrity reporters returning to their home towns to see if the people living there feel safe on the streets and would walk around alone.

Other reporters included Carol McGiffin of TV's Loose Women, Saira Khan an ex-Apprentice contestant.

Shelagh said: "I never thought I would have a gun pointed in my face and never thought that would happen just five minutes from the place I went to school."