Best pal of boy killed by stray bullet in gang Rhys was like my brother.. I’ll make sure his memory will live on

“It was difficult at first and I was gutted because Rhys should have been here, but as I’ve got older I’ve learned to cope. “If Rhys was still here he would be just the same. He’d be a good lad with loads of mates, maybe a professional football player. He was a boss footie player.” Connor, now 21, recalled how Rhys’s mum Melanie sobbed as she handed over a holiday gift her son had bought him before his murder. He has kept the gift and regularly visits the grave of his friend, who he first met at nursery. Connor, now a finance assistant, was the same age as Rhys, only 11, when the lad was shot in the back on the Fir Tree pub car park in Croxteth, Liverpool, on Augustt 22, 2007, by gang member Sean Mercer. The tragedy was the culmination of years of feuding and fighting between the Crocky Crew gang and north Liverpool rivals the Nogga Dogz.

Rhys’s mother Melanie, now 51, held her son in her arms as his life ebbed away just moment after he was struck with a stray bullet from a battered Smith & Wesson pistol.

The schoolboy died just days after returning from a family holiday in Menorca where he had bought a gift for his mate Connor.

Emotional

Following Rhys’s death, Melanie contacted Connor and invited him to their home where she emotionally handed over the present.

Connor, who lives in Norris Green, ten minutes from the shooting, said: “When he got back from holiday I spoke to him on MSN messenger.

“He said he had brought me something back off his holiday and he just said, ‘When am I going to see you?’

“We still had a couple more weeks before we went back to school so we made plans to meet up. We were going to different secondary schools so it was the last summer before we went different ways. “But that was literally the last time I spoke to him, on MSN. After he died his mum phoned me and asked me to come round so she could give me the stuff he got me from the holiday. “He got me a Celtic FC mug because my dad is from Scotland and he’s a big Celtic fan. Rhys also got me a keyring with my name on it. “His mum gave it to me a couple of weeks after he died. She invited me around and gave it me. “That was the first time I had seen her since he died. It was emotional for her. We were only 11 and I was too young to deal with it. I was only a kid myself. “I’ve still got the mug and key ring in my room on a shelf. I just think I’ll always keep it, it’s just a memory of him. It’s the last memory I’ve got of him.” Connor relived the moment he learned the young Everton fan had been killed – and recounted the last time he saw his best mate alive during a Tuesday night