A 14-year-old boy who had played football against Rhys Jones described the moments before and after the schoolboy's killing by a hooded gunman in a tape played to Liverpool Crown Court today.
Eleven-year-old Rhys was hit in the neck by one of three shot fired across a pub car park by 18-year-old Sean Mercer, prosecutors say.
The jury heard a taped police interview with the 14-year-old witness, who cannot be identified, the Press Association reported.
The teenager, who was 13 at the time of the shooting, was sitting with a friend in a tree behind the Fir Tree pub in Croxteth, Liverpool, where Rhys was killed in August 2007.
Just before the shooting, the 14-year-old had been watching Rhys while he was at a football practice.
"I saw a lad aged about 13 or 14 riding past really fast on a black BMX bike," said the witness. "He had a black tracksuit on and a black hoodie on.
"He went around the side of the pub and about three seconds after we lost sight of him we heard the shots. A few seconds after that, he came back riding very quickly.
"He was trying to put something in his pocket and wobbled his bike and went on to the grass."
The 14-year-old initially thought the sound of three gunshots had come from a cap gun, but when he ran to the front of the pub he saw Rhys lying on the floor with his head on the kerb.
The shooting of the keen Everton supporter shocked Liverpool and heightened concerns about gang crime across the country.
Both Everton and Liverpool football clubs held tributes for the murdered schoolboy, while hundreds lined the streets for his funeral at Liverpool's Anglican cathedral.
The prosecution says the shooting was the result of a violent rivalry between Croxteth's Crocky Crew, which counted Mercer among its members, and nearby Norris Green's Strand Gang.
The prosecution says Mercer, who denies murder, was helped after the shooting by six other Crocky Crew members.
James Yates (20), Melvin Coy and Gary Kays, both 25, two 17-year-old boys and a 16-year old boy all deny assisting an offender.
Reuters