Rhys killer lifetime ban from Liverpool

KILLER Sean Mercer will be banned from Liverpool when he is eventually freed.

Mercer who shot dead 11-year-old Rhys Jones in 2007, could also be given a new identity at the taxpayers’ expense.

He will not be considered for release for another 12 years. Even then, the Parole Board ® will not let him out unless he agrees to stay away from Merseyside.

The move is to stop Mercer, 26, accidentally coming into contact with Rhys’s relatives.

Mercer’s murder of Everton fan Rhys as he returned home from football training in Croxteth, Liverpool, featured in ITV drama Little Boy Blue which concluded on Monday night. Such is the furore surrounding the series that the killer’s legal team could apply for him to get a new identity to protect him from revenge attacks.

Courts granted similar orders to Jon Venables and Robert Thompson who killed two-yearold James Bulger in 1993 when they were 10.

Maxine Carr, who gave then boyfriend Ian Huntley a false alibi for the murders of 10-yearold Soham schoolgirls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, was also given a lifetime anonymity order.

Mercer, who was 16 when he shot Rhys, could demand similar protection.

A source said: “As soon as he gets back on the streets there will still be a price on his head.

“He’ll be made to stay well away from Merseyside when he’s freed.”

Mercer’s incarceration will have cost taxpayers around £1.7million by the time he is released from his minimum 22year sentence.