Rhys Jones: How police are working to help community

Feb 22 2008 by Laura Sharpe, Liverpool Daily Post

SUPERINTENDENT Ian Pilling was called in to cover Liverpool North the week Rhys Jones was killed.

Last night, he spoke of the impact of the 11-year-old’s death on the community and the police operation over the past six months.

Supt Pilling said: “Where Rhys was killed is not an unpleasant area, and gun crime is higher in other areas of the city, but this was a case where a young child was killed and it happened in such a public area.

“From the start, we felt it wasn’t gang-related but it was an 11 year-old-boy, a child.

“The public couldn’t help being captivated by the murder because it was unusual, it’s not the norm for kids to be killed.

“We always attend resident meetings in the area and there’s usually 30 to 50 people but at the first community residents action meeting within six weeks of the killing, there were 200-400 people.

“That afternoon there was anguish at the meeting, lots of questions and a tense atmosphere.

“The only way to describe it was a sense of terror across the community. No matter how much we said, it didn’t matter, because a young child was dead.

“Because of the way it happened, every young lad in a hoodie riding a bike was under suspicion.

“We issued a description of the offender and that ended up with every teenage boy being seen as a threat.

“We knew the community were afraid and we wanted to do everything we could to deal with what had happened.

“Immediately after the killing, we got an extra 40 officers from early November.

“From then until now, we have these officers on patrol, on foot, seven days a week so our foot patrols have doubled.

“We also clamped down on kids riding bikes without lights and riding their bikes on pavements.

“We will catch the person who did it and they will be put before the court.

“It’s no good arresting a person then releasing them, we need to make sure when we arrest someone we have a water- tight case against them.”