They were doing what? Firing a paintball gun at prostitutes?

Picked up an odd story the other day. It was in the Mercury midweek.

It's one I'll never have to write again if I stay at this desk until I'm carted off to a home for retired hacks.

I heard that a group of young men was cruising the city in a posh car firing paintball gun pellets at working girls in the city's vice areas.

I can't tune into the way those men must look at the world or what motivated this spiteful stunt.

I have a feeling their thought process ran something like this: "Let's humiliate those women. We'll give them a paint stain and a nice little bruise to remember us by."

It was a twist on a story I've looked at many times down the years - violence against the women who we all see when we nip up London Road for a curry or drive along Humberstone Road.

So, attacks on the women is not a new story.

Their 'boyfriends' (pimps actually, but I always feel too self-conscious to use that word - this is Leicester, not New York) are more often than not a vicious, money-grabbing bunch.

Then there are apparently quite a few punters who pay up, do the deed and then mug the girl to get their money back.

The paintball gun story came to me late in the day, so the people who would normally put me in touch with the women had gone home for the day.

A word here about those people. It's a welfare group called New Futures and they are top.

So, I headed out alone to the two areas where I expected to run into the women.

I was nervous. I've heard all kinds of stories about the 'boyfriends' and assorted oddballs who hang around the backstreets.

In the event, I spoke to six busy women and managed to avoid the erm, pimps.

Some had heard about the paintball gang, some wondered what I was on about and asked me if I'd be hanging around long because I was "putting the punters off".

But they all had plenty to say when I asked them to speak more generally about the grief they almost expect every time they come out.

All had been assaulted in some way in the past couple of weeks.

One girl I didn't meet that night is as far as I know still waiting for news on whether she's lost her hearing in one ear permanently.

A man came up from behind her and hit across the side of her head with a brick.

One of the women said someone had pinged a small metal projectile at her with a catapult.

And so it goes on.

Happily - and I know that sounds odd - there is something positive to conclude with here.

Now I'm guessing New Futures and sound and sympathetic policing has had an influence here, but the women speak to the police and when they are victims of crime they have come to expect justice.

That wasn't always the case and it certainly isn't universal even now.

But instead of soaking up the punishment they are beginning to feel that they can expect to be listened to and, if they are willing to stay with it and make a statement, action can be taken against abusive, dangerous men.

One punter was jailed for raping several women earlier this year really only because the women stayed with it, made their statements, put up with the vagaries of the criminal justice system and had their day in court.

That man won't be around to harm women for years.

I think the conclusion is that a largely ignored, hidden, even sometimes reviled group of women, is slowly claiming one of the most basic rights.

Incidentally, a day or two later I heard one of the women had passed on the registration number of the posh car the paintball boys were travelling in.

The driver was a well-paid young professional. He's been visited at home and, although he won't be seeing the inside of a courtroom, he's had the fright of his life by all accounts.

Incidentally, I must admit to a little hesitation when I realised I'd inadvertently indulged in a spot of cliched alliteration when I filed the story.

I put the words 'prostitutes', 'pot-shots' and 'paintball gun' - in the first paragraph.

I left it the way it was because I couldn't think of any other way of putting it.

In an earlier post I said something dismissive about cliches in news copy and probably implied that I could never do such a thing.

Clearly I can.