DETECTIVES hunting a gunman who blasted teenager Adam Hayes are again searching the area where the shooting took place.

A painstaking search of route the 17-year-old took on the night he was attacked has been carried out by police for a second time.

Adam had been out with three friends in the Cherry Tree area on the night of Friday, February 11, and was returning to his home in Redlam, Blackburn, when he was attacked.

The teenager was blasted in the chest at close range with a shotgun and needed emergency surgery at Blackburn Royal Infirmary. Police at the time said he was lucky to survive.

Uniformed officers were out in force yesterday, checking the route Adam and his friends took from the Beehive pub down Preston Old Road towards Witton Park. Fingertip searches of open spaces along the route were carried out along with searches of drains and culverts in the area.

Acting Detective Inspector Peter Broom said: "The person who carried out this attack is obviously a very dangerous man and we are determined to catch him. We have been carrying out a second detailed search of the area where the shooting took place on the off-chance that we missed something the first time around."

Police are also keen to talk to the caller who contacted the confidential Crimestoppers line with the name of a suspect. They are offering a £5,000 reward for any information leading to the arrest of the gunman and stress all calls will be dealt with in the strictest confidence.

Callers can contact Blackburn CID on 01254 51212 of the Crimestoppers line on 0800 555111.

A local man was arrested in the early hours of Saturday morning after he was spotted in Preston Old Road.

He was questioned for four days but released without charge.

Picture shows police searching a drain.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.