A SCHOOLGIRL was left fearing for her life after a man pulled a gun on her while she walked her dogs.

Fourteen-year-old Aimee Neal ran screaming from a bridleway at Fairmile near Christchurch on Tuesday afternoon when a hooded man loaded a gun and pointed it at her.

The Twynham School pupil ran to the nearest house she could find at neighbouring Calkin Close to report the incident.

Her mum, Emma, said her daughter came home as “white as a ghost” with make-up streaming down her face, barely able to describe her ordeal.

Aimee was walking down the Bronte Avenue bridleway when a white man aged in his 20s, wearing a black hooded top and black trousers, suddenly stopped in front of her pulling a handgun from his pocket.

She said: “I didn’t think anything of it until he got that out of his pocket. I’ve been really scared all night. If it had happened anywhere else I just don’t know what I would have done. Thank God there were houses nearby.”

Ms Neal said: “I thought she was going to say someone had grabbed her or sexually assaulted her or something. But not that.”

Ms Neal, 37, stormed to Christchurch police station to alert the emergency services.

Within minutes armed police and uniformed officers flew down Barrack Road towards the crime scene.

Aimee fled the bridleway leaving the dogs Buddy and Lola behind.

“She’s such an animal lover and was so upset she left them,” Ms Neal said.

“They followed her but she was broken up by the whole thing. She was in such a state, especially with everything that’s going on at the moment.”

Just the day before Aimee had asked Emma about Saturday’s attacks in London and if anything similar could happen in Christchurch.

Ms Neal said: “She asked ‘would anyone go into the school with a gun?’ I said ‘of course not, it’s Christchurch. They only target the big cities’. And then this happened.

“It is the most horrendous feeling. I just can’t believe that something like this happened.”

Detective Constable Ben Griffin, of Bournemouth CID, asked for any witnesses to step forward.

“Specially-trained officers are providing support to the teenage girl and her family,” he said.

“Officers from the neighbourhood policing team will be carrying out high visibility patrols in the coming days to offer reassurance to the community and can be approached with any concerns.

“There has been some discussion on social media that this incident is terrorism related. I would like to make it very clear that there is nothing to suggest this is the case.”

A 24-year-old man of Christchurch arrested a short time later on suspicion of possession of a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence and possession of a knife or bladed article in a public place has been released under investigation.

No firearm has yet been found.