“It sounded like it ricocheted off the container. Then a space, then another one and then another one.

“I got off straight away and went the opposite way where it sounded they (the gunshots) came from.”

A police interview of the boy Brady and Davies were with was played to the court.

Speaking quietly in a thick local accent, he added: “I could see his hands out and then bangs. It was like a 'ting’. He was on like a small mountain bike.

“It made a different noise when it hit the container.”

He added: “It was very close, about a foot behind. Then there were two more bangs. Kev was saying to me: ‘Let's go quick’.”

The pair fled to a nearby fish and chip shop, where they took shelter behind the counter.

But the youth denied being asked by a female of staff: “Is this because of you?”

When asked what was going through his mind, the teenager said: “I was thinking someone was coming after us.”

“I heard the gun shots and I was thinking people are after us.”

But when the police interviewer asked why the bullets would be meant for him, he quickly added: “No, I know they are not for me, they could have been for anyone.

“They were aimed towards me and Kev weren’t they? They were close, so they could have been aimed for me.”

“I just know they were close.”

Jurors have heard fanatical Everton fan Rhys was killed after “literally walking into the line of fire” of a long-running and violent feud between rival gangs.

Boy M – the defendant who told police Mercer admitted the killing – faces three counts of assisting an offender but “accepts most of what is alleged against him”.

Mr Flewitt said: “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.”

All the accused deny the charges against them.

The case will continue on Monday.