A three-year-old toddler was "pointing" a gun at children and residents of a quiet street in Mottingham after four other children found the weapon in a bush on Wednesday.

Marta Zambrzycka’s nine-year-old daughter Victoria was one of the five children who made the grim discovery while playing outside their home on Grace Close.

The 38-year-old mother-of-two said she moved to the quiet, residential street from her home country of Poland seven years ago but the incident has now made her question the safety of the area.

She said: “The kids were all playing outside last night, there were five of them and suddenly my daughter came back into the house quite shocked and scared and suddenly said 'I think we’ve found a gun', and saw a little three-year-old boy aiming the gun at all the other kids.

“I was absolutely shocked and very frightened.”

Mrs Zambrzycka, who also has an 18-year-old son, added: “I had no idea if it was loaded. If it was loaded there could have been a very serious accident.”

The waitress said the police attended to remove the gun and spoke to some of the children but not her daughter.

She added: “I was waiting and waiting for them to talk to my daughter but they seemed uninterested. I’m a resident and I should be told what’s going on, especially as my child found it.”

The three-year-old boy's mother, Jackie Davis, 44, who denied her son had been pointing the handgun at people, said she was with a group of other mums watching their children playing in the square when the incident happened.

She said: "A girl they were all playing with found the gun and picked the gun up.

"She put the gun down and my son picked it up, because he's a boy, thinking it's like a toy gun he's got indoors.

"He was looking at it and it was obviously a bit heavy for him so he's thrown it back down.

"Then all the children came up to us and said 'we've found a gun'."

She said one of the mothers ran over, saw it was a real weapon, and called the police, before hurrying the youngsters away from the area.

Ms Davis went on: "It frightened the life out of me. I haven't slept for two days thinking what could've happened, what might have happened."

In a statement police said: “We can confirm that police were called at approximately 18:30 on Wednesday 3 September to reports of a gun found in Grace Close, Mottingham. The gun was found in a bush by a group of children.

“Officers from Lewisham were called to the scene. A gun has been seized and brought back to Lewisham police station where it will be examined.”