Police chief warns Rhys’ killer: It’s only a matter of time before we catch you

Nov 7 2007 by Caroline Innes, Liverpool Daily Post

Merseyside's Chief Constable Bernard Hogan-Howe _320

THE chief constable of Mersey-side has said police know who killed schoolboy Rhys Jones – and it is only a matter of time before he is caught.

In a direct warning to the prime suspect in the murder investiga-tion, Bernard Hogan-Howe said a case was being built and the killer would be brought to justice.

Eleven-year-old Everton fan Rhys was shot dead as he walked home from football practice in Croxteth, Liverpool, on August 22.

No one has been charged despite 18 arrests in connection with the shooting, and graffiti bearing the suspected killer’s name being daubed on walls in Croxteth Park, and appearing on internet web sites.

With such widespread specula-tion to the killer’s identity, police in the case have been criticised for not charging the suspect – who it is understood has been arrested on the suspicion of Rhys’s murder once already.

But, in a live radio broadcast, Mr Hogan-Howe said: “If the person is listening, we are confident we know who you are and are building a case against you.”

He added detectives were “confident” the killer would be caught and said the case was progressing but that they could not publicise every success of the investigation.

He said: “We can’t shout about all the success. There has been wide reporting that people haven’t come forward, but people have come forward and spoken to us.”

Mr Hogan-Howe added: “I do understand an event like this knocks people’s confidence in the justice system and, yes, there may be times people worry that it’s not working, but on the whole it does work and it will work in this case.

“People have to judge us on the circumstances that develop over the next few weeks and months. We will get the person who com-mitted this crime.”

Police are still trying to trace a woman in a red car and a boy on a silver bike they believe could be key witnesses. Detectives believe the woman nearly hit a youth, thought to be the gunman, as he cycled in front of her car. A boy in his early teens was also seen cycling round the car park on a silver BMX just before the shooting at 7.15pm on the night of the murder.

Two BBC Crimewatch appeals, including a reconstruction of the shooting, have been made to try and identify the pair.

carolineinnes@dailypost.co.uk