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ITN
Rhys' father: 'He had no links to gangs'
Rhys' father: 'He had no links to gangs'
The heartbroken parents of murdered 11-year-old Rhys Jones have insisted he had no links to gangs.Melanie Jones cradled Rhys in her arms in his dying moments after he was shot in the neck outside the Fir Tree pub in Croxteth, Liverpool.Merseyside Police have appealed for the local residents to help solve the "senseless crime" quickly.On Thursday, officers arrested a 14-year-old boy and a 18-year-old man on suspicion of murdering the youngster. They were later released on police bail.Rhys was playing football with friends when he was shot by a teenager who rode past the pub on a BMX bike, residents said.Speaking at Merseyside Police headquarters , Mrs Jones, 41, said: "Our son was only 11, our baby. This should not happen, this should not be going on. Please help us. I just want them caught."Her husband Stephen, 44, a retail manager with Tesco, said his football-mad son was too young to know about the world of guns and gangs.He said: "The guy (Rhys) probably doesn't know what a gang is, he's never been in some sort of gang."He's got his mates, he's got the people who he hangs around with, he goes and plays football."Prime Minister Gordon Brown described the killing as a "heinous crime" and pledged that those responsible would face justice.Mrs Jones recalled finding Rhys in the pub car park but was unable to get any response from him as she waited for an ambulance.She said: "He was unconscious, he did not come around after that. He was just lying there in a pool of blood."They put him in an ambulance. They tried for an hour and a half to resuscitate him but his little body could not take it, he had just lost too much blood."Her husband added: "People are saying to me, 'Wrong time, wrong place'. It shouldn't be a case of wrong time, wrong place. It shouldn't happen in this country."Somebody out there knows who's done it."© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.
ITN | August 24, 2007
