A teenager accused of shooting a 15-year-old schoolboy in the face in Kesgrave had been taking his mother’s antidepressant medication in the months before the attack, a court has heard.

In his second day in the witness box at Ipswich Crown Court, the boy - who cannot be named because his age - said he had started taking his mother's Citalopram tablets without her knowledge when he was 14 and suffering from “anxiety, stress and panic attacks”.

The teenager, who is now 16, said a combination of “humiliation and bullying” by the victim of the shooting and his parents arguing had made him feel “upset and alone”.

He said he had taken one or two tablets a week but only when he was feeling upset.

On the morning of the shooting in September last year he had taken two tablets, he said.

He said he had read online that Citalopram was used to treat depression and panic attacks.

He continued taking the medication in the months before the shooting because he was feeling worse rather than better, he said.

The 16-year-old has denied attempted murder, possession of a shotgun with intent to endanger life, wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and possessing a shotgun with intent to cause fear of violence against a man who witnessed the incident.

The court has heard that he has admitted an offence of possessing a firearm with intent to cause fear of violence.

It has been alleged that the victim was deliberately shot as he was walking to Kesgrave High School, where he was a pupil.

Riel Karmy-Jones QC, prosecuting, has alleged that the defendant, who was 15 the time of the alleged shooting, set out to kill the boy after planning the attack for a year.

Following the shooting, the defendant allegedly stood near the victim, who was lying in a pool of blood, with “no sense of urgency” and according to witnesses “appeared to have all day”.

A friend later told police that the teenager had been planning the attack for a year but he had wrongly assumed he was joking.

The court has heard that on September 7 last year, the defendant took his grandfather’s double barrelled shotgun and drove to Friends Walk, in Grange Farm, Kesgrave, in his father’s car - where he allegedly lay in wait for more than an hour before shooting the victim.

The boy had a “significant “injury to the side of his face and suffered a stroke after being taken to hospital, which left him partially paralysed with some brain damage.