A SHOT fired by a 13-year-old boy went three inches inside his playmate's skull causing lethal brain damage, a court was told yesterday.

Home Office pathologist Dr James Sunter, who examined the body of Matthew Sheffield, 14, said he had no chance of surviving the injury.

Matthew was shot by a .22 air rifle, which the prosecution alleges was aimed at his head by a friend, who is now 14, and who cannot be named for legal reasons.

The gun belonged to the unnamed youngster's father and was normally kept in the loft of their home in Eaglescliffe, near Stockton, Teesside.

But in April last year, when the father was away, the boy and his older brother were taking potshots with it in their garden before Matthew of Clifton Avenue, Eaglescliffe, was shot.

He died in hospital the next day after his parents agreed to the life-support machine being switched off because he was brain-stem dead, said David Robson, prosecuting.

The unnamed boy, who sits in court beside his father, pleads not guilty to man-slaughter. The case continues.