A MAN who shot a 12-year-old boy in the back of the head with an airgun pellet after he hurled “a torrent of racist abuse” at a little girl on a Bradford estate has been spared an immediate jail sentence.

Kgotso Mokgohloa had “a fairly catastrophic loss of control” after seeing the child crying hysterically after she was insulted by two boys doing wheelies on their bikes in the street, Bradford Crown Court heard.

Mokgohloa, 37, of Holsworthy Road, Holme Wood, Bradford, pleaded guilty to assaulting the boy causing him actual bodily harm and possession of an imitation firearm with intent to cause fear of violence on the evening of Saturday, September 7.

Prosecutor Paul Nicholson told the court that the little girl was deeply upset by the boys’ use of language about her.

When Mokgohloa, a warehouse assistant, told the boys off, they called him a monkey and a black b***ard, it was alleged.

The 12-year-old and his friend returned to the street several times to hurl abuse at him when he was in his front window cooking a meal for his family.

Mr Nicholson said that the boy shot by the defendant conceded that he had made fun of the little girl’s “frizzy hair.”

Mokgohloa pointed a BB gun at the child, who thought it was a real pistol.

“I was shocked and scared,” he told the police.

He was cycling off on to Broadstone Way when he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head.

He was treated by paramedics and the pellet was removed in hospital.

“I felt a lot of pain; I felt dizzy and I had blurred vision,” he said.

Mokgohloa was arrested that day and the BB gun seized from his home.

He told the police: “Those kids, they were racist all afternoon.”

His barrister, Shufqat Khan, said the gun wias used for target practice in the back garden.

Mr Khan said the boy’s behaviour was “wholly unacceptable in modern society.”

He had levelled “a torrent of abhorrent racist abuse” at a young girl and called Mokgohloa a monkey and a black b***ard.

Mr Khan said the boy had been reported for his behaviour that day.

His client was upset, frustrated and angry and had a two- minute loss of control

Mokgohloa was a hardworking family man who moved to the country from South Africa in 2004.

Judge Colin Burn sentenced him to ten months imprisonment, suspended for two years, with a rehabilitation activity requirement.

He told Mokgohloa: “It was a fairly catastrophic loss of control when you pulled the trigger on that gun.”

Judge Burn conceded that he was provoked and had no similar previous convictions.