Rhys is seventh victim of gun crime epidemic

Aug 25 2007 by David Bartlett, Liverpool Daily Post

THE murder of Rhys Jones at the tender age of just 11 has shocked Merseyside and the nation as a whole.

But he is sadly far from the first victim of a fatal shooting in Merseyside in the past 12 months. He is, in fact, the seventh person to die in regional shooting since last July.

Figures suggest Liverpool’s gun crime record may actually be worse than London per head of population.

In 2006, fifteen people were shot dead in the capital, and another 15 from January to June this year – 30 people over a year and half, a shocking rate of 1.6 fatalities per month.

And while not comparing like for like exactly, Merseyside’s seventh and most shocking death since July last year brings the average to 0.6 deaths per month.

While Merseyside has three times fewer shooting deaths in the period, the Metropolitan Police covers a population five times bigger than Merseyside, leaving our region with a higher gun death rate per person.

Merseyside’s rate is certainly worse than Nottingham, once dubbed “Shootingham”, which had only one fatal shooting last year.

And even Liverpool’s neighbouring city down the M62, sometimes known as “Gunchester”, seemingly has a better record.

Between April, 2005, and March, 2006, four people were shot dead in Manchester.

Professor Peter Waddington, a firearms expert at the University of Wolverhampton, said he believes a city’s gun crime closely follows its drugs market – sometimes causing completely innocent victims like 11-year-old Rhys.

He added: “If you have got a high level of gun crime in a city the size of Liverpool, while it may well be that Liverpool is not the size of Manchester or London, the drug market may be just as big.”

Indeed, in 2002, a leaked memo from Merseyside’s chief constable at the time, Norman Bettison, revealed how the region was the UK’s main distribution centre for drugs.

Three years later, the Matrix unit was set up to crack down on gun crime and appears to be having an impact with violent crime down 25% last year.

But as revealed in the Daily Post earlier this year, 48 under-18s were arrested for gun crimes in 2006, showing guns are getting into the hands of young people.

Prof Waddington said criminal organisations often gave guns to youngsters to look after because they were less likely to be searched.

They then saw guns being brandished about by gangsters who became their role models.

After Japan, Britain probably had the strictest gun control laws in the world.

But he added: “The world is awash with guns, and there are simply an enormous amount of guns available to criminals.”

It was estimated that for every person in the world there were three guns, he added.

“Holding back the tide of guns is a bit like King Canute” (who is remembered for his inability to halt the rising tide).

“The kind of actions that would required are almost of wartime severity (to get a grip on the problem).”

Opposition Labour spokesman for children’s services, Cllr Jane Corbett, revealed that in the areas around Croxteth Park, where Rhys Jones was murdered, £80,000 of cash for youth services, out of a more than £440,000 budget, went unspent last year. Cllr Corbett said she never got to the bottom of why the money set aside for Croxteth, Norris Green, and Clubmoor, was not spent but said it should never have been allowed to happen.

But Cllr Corbett said there had always been agreement between the ruling Liberal Democrat group and Labour to maintain youth service funding.

She questioned the way money was allocated, saying the formula saw more affluent areas getting more funding because of population differences.

“But, to be fair, we have had some really good co-ordinated work with the police since the shooting of Liam Smith (a year ago),” she added.

Colin Eldridge, executive member for leisure and community safety, said the underspend was down to a “recruitment crisis” in certain areas.

“My view is that the formula is not plucked out of the sky,” he added.

He said Croxteth had seen more money in recent times, and the city is ranked 13th out of 143 local authorities for its spend per head on youth services.

Youth Services only recently became part of his portfolio.

“One of the first things I did was say that every time there is a police dispersal order there has to be a youth diversionary activity put on by youth services.”

davidbartlett