A TEENAGE shopworker was approached by a man outside a house in Cheapside, Shildon, hours before police shot dead Keith Richards at that location, The Northern Echo has learned.

Two police officers responding to 999 calls went to Cheapside, Shildon, at 12.30am where they saw a man with what they thought was a crossbow.

The man is understood to have fired the crossbow from the window of a house and he was shot dead by police at 1.20am.

Today, 17-year-old Jill Maughan told how she had been approached by a man at the same spot last night.

She said the man was leaning against a silver car smoking a cigarette and tried to entice her into the house, offering her money for sex.

Miss Maughan, who works in Bishop Auckland, said: "I was walking home and he shouted at me, making sexual references.

"He wanted me to go into the house. He offered me £100 if I would have sex with him.

"I walked fast because I was scared. It shook me up.

"I didn't like it. He was drunk. He was a skinhead, tall and was wearing a cream jacket.

"I don't know whether it was the same man but it was the same house."