Forget the yobs, it was the police who did me more damage, says airgun-toting teacher

A teacher jailed for confronting yobs with an air pistol has revealed how her life had been damaged more by the police than the youths who terrorised her family.

Linda Walker, 51, said she felt let down by officers who she claimed repeatedly failed to stop her home being targeted and ruthlessly pursued her prosecution when she took the law into her own hands.

Three years ago, the special needs teacher was jailed for six months and sacked from her £30,000-a-year post at New Park High School in Salford after firing the air pistol at the feet of convicted criminal Robert McKiernan, then 19.

She said he had been one of a gang, including his friend Nicholas Viollett, that had been hounding her family.

Her imprisonment was widely condemned and after 36 days she was freed on appeal.

Although Mrs Walker, who had a 25-year unblemished teaching career, won the right to continue in the profession, she no longer has a full-time teaching job.

Now the mother of three has written a book about her ordeal. She says she no longer feels animosity towards the youths who targeted the family home.

'They don't give us grief any more,' she said. 'I feel I have had far more damage done to me by the police.

'They could have done something about stopping what was going on. They could have helped us more.'

She added: 'I'm very sorry for what I did and realise I shouldn't have been allowed to do that.

'But my life was totally intolerable because I didn't know what was going to happen next.'

Four years ago this week, she confronted a group of youths she saw emptying water over her son's car outside their home, in Urmston, Greater Manchester.

It was the final straw after two years of thefts, petty vandalism and abusive phone calls.

Mrs Walker picked up her son's air rifle and the air pistol her partner had bought to scare away squirrels.

Robert McKiernan (left) and Nicholas Viollett were accused of making Linda Walker's life hell

She rang the police and told them: 'I have got an air rifle and I have got a pistol and I am going to shoot the ******* vandals who come around here.'

In her book, Yobs On The Doorstep, Mrs Walker describes the ensuing confrontation: 'He said, "Go on then, shoot me you silly old woman."

'He was so near now that I worried he might try to grab the pistol.

'He slowly moved his right foot right up against mine. Toe to toe.

'I said, "Move your foot." He didn't. I pointed the gun at his foot. Still he didn't move.

'I obviously wasn't going to shoot him so I moved it to the side of his foot and shot it at the pavement.

'The gun made a pathetic puff. I had his attention now, so I fired the gun twice more at the tarmac away from us.'

Mrs Walker always denied the gun was loaded, although her trial heard she fired at least two pellets into the pavement.

She was charged with affray and possession of a firearm.

The book charts her battles with the police, courts, prison system  -  she went on hunger strike in jail  -  and her employers.

Sacked by Salford City Council in 2005, she was cleared to teach again by the Department of Education and Skills last year.

She now takes a few classes at her local college.