One of three suspected gang members, believed to have been the target of the hooded gunman who shot Rhys Jones, shouted “It’s about time one of you got shot”, as he passed the dying boy, Liverpool Crown Court was told yesterday.

Kevin Davies, 19, his friend Wayne Brady, 20, and a younger associate, were all allegedly members of the Strand Gang, based in Norris Green, and rivals of the neighbouring Croxteth Crew.

Witnesses told the jury that the three were in the area of The Fir Tree pub in Croxteth Park — the territory of a third gang, the Stand Farm Heads — on the evening of Wednesday August 22 when the shots rang out and the 11-year-old schoolboy was struck.

A 16-year-old girl wept as she recalled how Mr Davies mistook the dying child for a member of a rival gang as he cycled past and yelled: “It’s about time one of you Stand Farm Heads got shot.”

The witness, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said her sister shouted back: “It is only a kid — you are out of order. It is your fault. If you were not down [here], it wouldn’t have happened.”

Neil Flewitt, QC, for the prosecution, asked the witness, who was screened from the dock by curtains, whether she knew what he had meant by those words.

She replied: “Obviously they were the target — they were from Norris Green.”

She was one of three witnesses who agreed that the area in east Liverpool was rife with gangs and that membership depended on where they lived.

Vicki Smart, 19, told the jury that her family had to move from their house in Croxteth Park in January last year because it had become a gang target. A shot had been fired at the property.

She said: “I think it was because of my ex-boyfriend, Wayne Brady. Not many people liked him — he was from Norris Green.” Miss Smart said that she was with her ex-boyfriend, a short distance from the pub, when the shots rang out.

Earlier, another 16-year-old girl, who also cannot be identified because of her age, said that Sean Mercer, 18, had once threatened Wayne Brady. Three years ago Mr Mercer had told her that Wayne Brady was “going to get it”.

She said that Mr Mercer, of Croxteth, Merseyside, appeared at the time to have been joking and that she had not taken it seriously enough to warn Mr Brady, or anybody else.

She was in a nearby shop when, shortly before 7.30pm on Wednesday August 22, 2007, the hooded gunman allegedly rode his mountain bike from behind the pub and fired three shots across the forecourt. One shot passed through Rhys’s shoulder, exiting through the neck.

The teenager described seeing Mr Brady’s two associates riding their bikes quickly towards the safety of the nearby shopping parade.

Sean Mercer, of Croxteth, Liverpool, denies murder. He shares the dock with six others, including three juveniles, who all deny charges relating to the fatal shooting.

The trial continues.

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