Lancashire Police were called at around 7.45 p.m. yesterday (Sunday 27th August) to reports of an attempted robbery outside the Highfield Pub on Highfield Road, when two men on dirt bikes and wearing balaclavas approached a third man and tried to steal a gold chain from him.
Police say that the victim held onto the chain, but then had a substance, believed to be ammonia, sprayed onto his face. This caused some stinging and burning, however emergency services attended and the man had his eye cleaned, and thankfully is not believed to have suffered serious injury.
A Police Spokesperson has added, ‘We have since seen speculation on social media, including that a young child was sprayed with ammonia during the incident, so we would like to clarify that this is not the case.
However, our enquiries are very much ongoing and we are asking anybody with information, or who saw the incident or the offenders or caught anything on camera, to get in touch on 101, quoting log 1226 of August 27th.’
