Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Caught in the crossfire
A MUM is ironing football shirts and watching daytime TV, getting on with the mundane routines of everyday life.
But it’s tough to watch because we know what is about to happen. Any moment there will be an urgent banging on the front door, and with it, the worst news a parent could ever hear. This is a dramatisation of the real life murder of 11-year-old schoolboy Rhys Jones. Rhys was shot dead as he crossed a pub car park to walk home after football practice in Croxteth, Liverpool in 2007. The killing shocked the nation and this four-part factual drama centres on the devastating impact of an innocent child’s murder amid a wave of gang violence. Sinead Keenan and Brian F. O’byrne put in heartrending performances as Rhys’ parents Melanie and Steve Jones who have fully backed this adaptation. There are harrowing scenes as Melanie cradles Rhys (Sonny Beyga) as he lies bleeding on the pavement. And Steve is almost catatonic with disbelief – he thought at first his son, a devoted Everton fan, had just been shot with an air gun. Later there is a particularly distressing moment as Melanie is threatened with police arrest if she cuddles or kisses her dead son in the morgue – because his body must be preserved for evidence. Stephen Graham plays the kind Detective Superintendent Dave Kelly, charged with bringing Rhys’ teenage killer to justice. The murderer’s identity is well known to everyone, but finding the evidence to charge him proves to be a far more difficult challenge.