YOBS pelted a popular pub with ball bearings as customers enjoyed a balmy evening.

The group took aim at the Ye Olde Albion pub, in Rowhedge High Street, from across the river at Wivenhoe while dozens of people were drinking inside and in beer garden on Sunday evening.

No-one was hurt in the attack but at two of the pub’s windows were smashed.

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Essex Police has launched a criminal damage investigation but Colchester Council public safety boss Mike Lilley says the force must take the attack more seriously.

He said: “We are talking about a group of people who have walked out from Wivenhoe into the marshes and loaded up either catapults or a ball bearing gun and fired it at a group of people repeatedly.

“The windows which were broken were ground floor windows and these bearings were flying past people’s heads.

Gazette: Mike Lilley and pub landlords Simon and Dawn outside the pub which was fired at with pellets

“It doesn’t bear thinking about what could have happened if one had struck someone’s face.

“The police need to find these culprits and take this far more seriously than criminal damage.

“I would say to anyone is Wivenhoe reading this: ‘Do you know where your children are?’

“Who is known to have these sorts of items?

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“Whoever did this targeted people sitting enjoying a drink in some rare October heat and I will be speaking to police to get them to take this more seriously - what if it happens again tomorrow?”

Landlord Simon Taylor-Williams said: “One of the women who was out the front is pregnant.

“We just said: ‘Thank God she didn’t stand up at the wrong time or we could have been dealing with something much worse.’

“What if they’d hit someone in the eye or in the temple?”

Mr Taylor-Williams said the pub had previously been targeted by youths across the river but never with such violent weapons.

An Essex Police spokesman said officers were sent to the scene at about 8.40pm on Sunday. A search was carried out but no arrests were made.

Anyone with information should call 101, quoting incident 1068 of 15/10.