Liverpool Crown Court 100
He added: “It will, perhaps, come as no surprise to you to learn that the serial number of the silver Specialized Hardrock mountain bike found by Mr Shimmin in Kirkby is the same as the serial number of the Specialized Hardrock mountain bike supplied to Sean Mercer in April 2007.”
Furthermore, he said, DNA swabs taken from the alleged murderer matched DNA on the discovered bicycle.
The bicycle had been hidden less than 250 yards from the unit that Mercer and several of his co-accused allegedly visited hours after Rhys’s murder.
Mr Flewitt said: “Those facts, we suggest, provide compelling evidence that Sean Mercer was the person who shot Rhys Jones.”
Mercer was arrested on August 25 and said he was with a friend at the time of the murder - Boy K.
Boy K, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denies assisting an offender, two counts of possessing a gun and a charge of possessing ammunition.
Mercer declined to answer any questions, said Mr Flewitt.
He was rearrested in April and refused to answer questions, he added.
The QC told the packed courtroom that a 16-year-old defendant, Boy M, told police that Mercer’s bike had been collected from his house after the killing.
Boy M was said to have told police that Mercer arrived at his house and admitted the killing.
Mr Flewitt said Boy M “told the police that his grandmother answered the door to Sean Mercer who said that he had just shot someone and that a kid had gone down.
“Sean Mercer rang James Yates and asked him to come round and he then rang Gary Kays.”
Mr Flewitt told the jury that Boy M - charged with three counts of assisting an offender - “accepts most of what is alleged against him”.
“However, it is his case that he is not guilty of the offences with which he is charged because he was, at all times, acting under duress.
“That is, he was not exercising free will but was acting out of fear of Sean Mercer who had demanded his assistance in avoiding detection.”
