Rhys Jones’s killer Sean Mercer is pictured for the first time since he was jailed

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The killer of schoolboy Rhys Jones used an illicit phone to message a woman he met online – and has now been pictured for the first time since he was jailed. 

Sean Mercer, now 29, was sentenced to life with a minimum of 22 years after shooting dead 11-year-old Rhys as he walked home from football training in Liverpool in August 2007.  

Now it has emerged Mercer has been messaging a woman from within his cell after liking one of her comments on Instagram last August, the Sun reports. 

Mercer, seen in a £120 Ralph Lauren jumper in his first picture since being jailed, told her he was a model prisoner who deserves to be set free – writing that he was in jail after ‘accidentally’ hurting someone.

Mercer had told the woman during their eight-month relationship that he had aspirations of becoming a father to one or two children once he is released.  

Despite his 22-year minimum term, Mercer can apply for a review halfway through his sentence because he was sentenced as a juvenile.    

But revelations of a secret phone could hamper his legal bid for a reduction in his sentence.  

A source said: ‘This kind of behaviour goes to the heart of what Mercer is like.

‘On the one hand he’s trying to play the system by claiming he’s a reformed character so he can get out of prison earlier.

‘On the other, rather than sticking to the rules, he’s openly using a mobile phone to have a relationship with a woman on the outside.’

Mercer’s case will be heard before a High Court judge, and if it is found he has made ‘exceptional progress’ he could then apply for parole. 

Rhys’s father Stephen Jones said that Mercer ‘had a fair trial’ and should serve his full 22 years. 

Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said that Mercer’s eight-month relationship shows that he has ‘no regard for the law’, and it will be ‘heartbreaking’ for the victim’s parents to hear how he had a romantic relationship when their son was shot dead before he could experience a proper girlfriend. 

Everton fan Rhys was returning from football practice in Croxteth, Liverpool, on 22 August 2007, when he inadvertently walked into a gang fight and was shot in the neck.

Sean Mercer, then aged 16, was a member of the Croxteth Crew and involved in a bitter territorial dispute with the Strand Gang.

When he heard they had strayed onto his ‘patch’, he cycled on his BMX bike to the Fir Tree pub armed with a First World War Smith & Wesson revolver and fired three times at his rivals.

The second shot hit Rhys in the back and he died at the scene, in the arms of his mother, Melanie, who rushed to see her son when she heard the news. 

Mercer’s female companion visited him three times in prison. She said he told her he had ‘hung round with the wrong people’ and had accidentally hurt someone.

She said Mercer was not the person he was made out to be in media depictions, and the killing ‘eats him up’.

She added that 6ft Mercer ‘doesn’t get grief’ in prison and he said people don’t ‘f*** around with him’. 

The new image was said to have been taken inside HMP Frankland, County Durham, in 2019. 

Just one year earlier Rhys’s parents said they would ‘never forgive’ his killer, and hoped he is never freed from prison.

Mel and Steve Jones said the ‘void’ left by their son’s death has never gone away and ‘never will’.

Asked how she felt about the man who took her son’s life, Mrs Jones said: ‘I don’t hate him. It uses up too much of your energy. I will never forgive him. Ever.’

Mr Jones added: ‘We are a great believer that life should mean life, just like America… if he had handed himself in… he never thought about us for one moment.’

On seeing him in court, Mrs Jones: ‘He [Mercer] had such a baby face. The first thing that went through my mind, ‘It’s just a child killing another child, why is this happening?’.’ 

When asked whether her son was ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’, Mrs Jones said the expression left her infuriated. 

She said: ‘It drives me insane. It makes me so angry. He wasn’t in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

‘He was doing what he should be doing. He was walking home from football training. 

‘He was just happy out on a summer’s night. I hate saying this man’s name, it was Sean Mercer who shouldn’t have been there.’

How the killing of young Rhys Jones as he walked home from football training shocked a nation 

Rhys Jones was felled by a single bullet to the neck as he strolled home in broad daylight from football training – an innocent victim caught in the mindless and indiscriminate crossfire of two gangs waging war around Croxteth Park, in Liverpool.

Despite the efforts of paramedics, the youngster bled to death in his mother’s arms after she had rushed to the scene.

The summer’s day when unimaginable violence entered the Jones family’s quiet and unremarkable lives had begun for mother Melanie with the most mundane of outings – taking the boys to the local dentist, then going to buy a new school tie for Rhys. 

Her younger son was excited about getting his new uniform, including a Nike sports kit, to start secondary school before tragedy struck. 

The murder was one that shocked the nation, and beyond, with Rhys’ parents receiving tributes and cards of condolence from across the globe. 

More than 2,500 mourners came to the funeral at Liverpool Cathedral, with the public invited to wear bright colours and football strips, as Rhys’ father, Stephen, read a poem he had written for his son, and footballer Alan Stubbs read from the Bible.

A huge Everton fan, Rhys was buried in a blue coffin featuring the club crest, while the heroes he cheered on from the terraces laid a floral tribute, football boots and shirts at the scene of the killing in memory of the passionate young Toffee.

Fans and players also paid tribute to him with a minute’s applause in a game against Blackburn Rovers against Goodison Park, where Rhys used to regularly watch his team, holding the hand of his father.  

A limited edition purple kit made in memory of the youngster also become the club’s fastest selling pre-ordered shirt, raising thousands of pounds for the Liverpool Unites children’s charity. 

The Rhys Jones Memorial Fund raised money to fund a new community centre close to where the 11-year-old died, which opened six years after the death in August 2013. 

As well as emotional tributes, the murder sparked much discussion about guns and gang culture, and was referenced several times by MPs in the House of Commons.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith described the death as ‘tragic and very serious for his community’. 

Speaking in October 2007, she added: ‘I have made available £1 million and set up the tackling gangs action plan, and I am pleased that the deputy chief constable of Merseyside police, Jon Murphy, is now leading that work. 

‘We are increasing activity in the neighbourhoods in Merseyside, Greater Manchester, Birmingham and London where most gun and gang-related violence occurs.’

As the police investigation was launched, featuring more than 300 officers and gun crime specialists, Rhys’ parents made two emotional appeals for the killer to be found, the first the day after the murder.

Then they appeared on the BBC TV programme Crimewatch and directed their pleas to the mother of the gunman, as they recalled rumours of the killer’s name being whispered in estates and pubs around the city – something the couple tried to distance themselves from.

While many locally talked about violence and anti-social behaviour, the couple’s focus on work and family perhaps kept them unaware of the dangerous gang culture lurking in the areas surrounding their home. 

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday in 2008, a year on from the tragedy, Melanie told of how secret recordings of conversations in the homes of the gangs, which helped to build the case against them, had offered a shocking insight into the area’s violence.

‘Hearing how the parents and kids speak to each other, you think there is no respect – on both sides. This is so far away from our life that I can’t comprehend it. I don’t know what the answer is.

‘You can talk about needing community centres and schools getting involved but the buck has to stop with the parents,’ she said.   

In the hours after the death, local radio station Radio City 96.7’s programmes were dedicated to an amnesty for witnesses and a talk on gun crime. 

Radio City also launched an anti-gun-crime campaign, backed by the parents, In Rhys’s Name Get Guns Off Our Streets, after the incident. 

The tragedy also inspired ITV’s four-part documentary programme, Little Boy Blue – first aired in 2017 and being repeated on Sunday night – which documents the youngster’s death and the subsequent investigation, led by Detective Superintendent Dave ‘Ned’ Kelly, played by Stephen Graham.

At the time of its broadcast, viewers took to social media to describe the story as ‘heartbreaking’, though Pat Gallan, who was part of the probe into the death, insisted the show ‘should not be taken as fact’.

She argued the programme, in which she is played by Sara Powell, offered an unfair take on her behaviour at the time of the case, as she is shown to seemingly be more interested in the image of the force than securing justice for the family. 

ITV defended the way all featured in the series are portrayed however, as a spokesperson told the Telegraph: ‘Little Boy Blue is a drama based on extensive research with the Jones family and many others involved in the case. We are satisfied that it depicts the officers involved in the murder investigation fairly’.  

Earlier this month, it emerged that the’ killer Sean Mercer, was looking to appeal his sentence.

Rhys’ father told the Liverpool Echo: ‘You read certain things that Mercer is a changed person, but like the others in his gang have proved, they’ve been in more trouble since Rhys was killed. I don’t think he’s changed.’

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