A teenager was shot in the face by a gunman on a bike as he tried to get on a bus in Tulse Hill - then tried to take a cab to A&E.

He was shot at point-blank range at the 432 bus stop in Norwood Road at the junction with Christchurch Road.

Police said he was about to get on the bus with friends when an armed cyclist rode past him, spun him round and fired what was believed to be a converted air gun at 10.05pm on Friday.

The shrapnel from the homemade ammunition embedded itself in the teenager’s cheek.

His friends ran to take cover on the bus as the attacker rode away.

The teenagers then took the bleeding victim to nearby Brown’s taxi rank, and asked them to take him to hospital.

A driver at the company told the Streatham Guardian: “We couldn’t take him, because we can’t take shooting victims to hospital. We told him he had to wait for an ambulance.

“We couldn’t see how badly he was hurt because he was covering his face with a hood. He sat outside and waited.

“His friends kept running in to the shop begging us to take him, but we had to say no.”

Within minutes paramedics took the wounded youth to King’s College Hospital.

He was held there under hospital guard while he was treated. As this week’s paper went to press, he had not been discharged.

Officers from Trident, the Metropolitan Police’s specialist black-on-black shootings team, are investigating the incident.

Police sources said the victim was linked to a gang and was not co-operating with officers.