What a desperately sad and shocking documentary this was. Sad because a decent family now have a lifetime of grieving for Rhys – an innocent 11 year old boy who died at the hands of a ruthless thug with shoes bigger than his IQ – and shocking because the revelations about gang culture were a terrible indictment on our society.

The film followed the story of how the police managed to secure a conviction against the murderer Sean Mercer and his violent, arrogant compatriots as well as chronicling the devastation wrought on Rhys’s family by his horribly untimely death.

During the film, Melanie, Rhys’s mum, told Mark Austin, “It was said a lot at the time that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That used to upset us because we were thinking, he wasn’t in the wrong place and it wasn’t the wrong time. Rhys was where he should’ve been. It was Sean Mercer that shouldn’t have been there.”

This was Melanie and Stephen Jones’ first TV interview since Mercer was convicted, and their bravery and decency shone threw, but so did their still very raw grief. Melanie discussed many times during the film how she couldn’t understand why, when people saw their pain on TV so many times, someone, somewhere – especially a mother – didn’t come forward to the police with information.

Fortunately, eventually, a mother did just that and it was her brave testimony that helped put Mercer behind bars, so it was good to know that rottenness doesn’t necessarily overcome human decency, even at the very heart of that virulent cesspool of rottenness.

The fact that it was Sean Mercer who’d killed Rhys was, it seems, common knowledge in the area but nobody would come forward at first, fearing for their lives or alternatively because they too were entrenched in the gang culture and had a deluded sense of loyalty to Mercer and what he represented.

How can any parent – or indeed, any human – stand by knowing who was responsible for this terrible crime and do nothing?

It’s a question that Rhys’s parents have asked themselves repeatedly, as would any right minded person. That question especially applied to Mercer’s own mother who received a three year sentence for perverting the course of justice and aiding and abetting her vile son. It should’ve been a lot longer.

She raised then protected a monster and her punishment should’ve fitted that crime. This hatchet faced prostitute, who sold herself for £50 a time, supported her son in his crime and she should’ve been given life too. Rhys’s parents have a lifetime of suffering to go through so why shouldn’t she?

The fact that Rhys hadn’t been Mercer’s original target the day he killed him is largely irrelevant; Mercer had in fact gone to the Fir Tree pub in Croxteth to kill a rival gang member and he shot Rhys by accident as he was aiming at that person. Mercer, we heard, was part of the “Crocky Crew” who were sworn rivals of the “Strand Gang”. We heard how it was “showing disrespect” for members of the Strand gang to be on Crocky crew’s ‘turf’ and for this, someone was to die. Sadly, it was to be Rhys who was guilty of nothing.

That said, how can anyone at that scene – other than Mercer – have been guilty of anything? Since when do scum and thugs of the like of Mercer ‘own’ anywhere? Did we suddenly stop living in a free world or something? The entire basis for this heinous murder was a fantasy that’s real only in the minds of those violent yobs who believe they have any right to ‘claim territory’. It would be a laughable concept were it not for the fact that real people are really dying for this pathetic reason.

However, getting back to the programme, we heard from many people who were involved with the case how carefully and meticulously the police had to build their case against Mercer to ensure that he was found guilty, and they did a wonderful job. However, one of the most shocking things is that this evil thug was given ‘life’ with a recommendation that he serve 22 years. That’s not life, that’s 22 years and if he ‘behaves’ in prison, he might well be out sooner.

Had he lived, in 22 years, Rhys would’ve been just 33 years old. Maybe starting a family of his own and at a point when he could well expect another 50 years of life. Mercer robbed him of that, so how can anyone justify that scum walking the streets freely ever again?

Other gang members who aided and abetted Mercer in one form or another got sentences of just a few years and they’ll soon be out on the streets to continue to menace and terrorise society. How can that be right? As Melanie tearfully said, “We’ve got our life sentence haven’t we?”

And theirs is truly a life sentence; they’ll never have a day again for the rest of their lives when the absence of their child isn’t still a deep and purulent wound. And all for the sake of what amounts to self-styled, fantasist, paramilitary ‘warfare’. That the words ‘turf’ and ‘honour’ and ‘respect’ were bandied about as explanations for this hideous violence was incomprehensible.

No less astounding was the fact that anyone with enough decency left in them to testify against these brainless morons needed to be placed on a witness protection programme for probably the rest of their lives. These gangs are primarily from council housing estates where poverty is the norm, as is criminal activity. An ASBO is a badge of pride to the likes of Mercer.

He and his ilk are criminals born and bred who’re used to “working the system” in every respect and who graduate through the gang ‘ranks’ to become adult members whose only goals in life are to become drug dealers and burglars who live off the state to boot.

What the hell is wrong with these people?? How did this ever happen? There are millions of perfectly decent people living in similar circumstances but they don’t support their children toting guns or go around stealing and dealing in drugs. So what went wrong in Croxteth and other areas where gang crime is rife?

The answer to that may never be known but one thing that was crystal clear to me as a result of watching this film is that those who do ‘work the system’ need to be stopped, and fast. Harsher sentencing is one way to do that.

We’ve of course recently heard about another conviction for another senseless murder, that of Ben Kinsella. He too was an innocent boy who got caught in a conflict that was not of his making. Like Rhys, evil thugs took his life and in Ben’s case, it was because his killers said he’d “disrespected” them. His killers were also sentenced to a life tariff of 19 years.

Again, as with Mercer, they’ll be out on the streets far too soon. And again, as Melanie said last night, “Life should mean life.” And it should.

Surely it’s time the justice system was changed to be more like that of America where when you’re given life, it usually means you don’t get out unless you’re in a pine box.

Documentaries of this kind serve a very valuable purpose in that by hearing and seeing the devastation that’s visited upon normal, ordinary people by deviants such as Mercer, it can only strengthen the call for a more realistic and appropriate approach to sentencing. Rhys – and Ben – will never come back and so, neither should their killers. In the absence of a death penalty, they should literally spend the rest of their lives behind bars and never be free to walk our streets again. Their victims aren’t so why should they?

The other purpose that last night’s programme served was to show how murders such as this have a tragic ripple effect. For instance, the football coach who was one of the last people to talk to Rhys had offered him a lift home which Rhys had declined. The what-ifs clearly haunt that poor man.

But there was also some comforting reaffirmation of the goodness of most people when the entirety of the Everton team and their fans honoured Rhys and his parents. Also, the public outpouring of grief and sympathy for the Jones family proved that decency is alive and well. Fortunately, those with a sense of decency and humanity still outnumber the bottom feeders like Mercer and his gang who inhabit festering pools of evil.

However, one of the most horrifying aspects of last night’s film was seeing again that grainy CCTV footage of a kid riding a bike, clothed in typical chav-wear of a hoodie and tracksuit bottoms. He was just 16, little more than a child himself, but he was carrying a gun that he fully intended to use yet those images might’ve been of any kid anywhere cycling to the shop or to meet friends. The incongruity of a child cycling to commit a premeditated murder was utterly shocking.

Arguably more shocking though was the total lack of remorse shown for the fact that an 11 year old boy had been killed. In fact, from Melanie and Stephen’s own testimony about the trial, we heard how Mercer and other gang members laughed and joked in the dock and continued their swaggering disregard for the life they’d taken that was more valuable than all theirs put together.

I can’t begin to imagine how Melanie and Stephen – as well as the multitude of other parents and families – cope with the anger at the loss of a loved one to such mindless, pointless violence, but I can and do admire their fortitude and bravery.

I personally would support a reinstatement of the death penalty but failing that, I’ve added my name to petitions that call for tougher sentencing. If you’d like to do so too, you can visit the following sites to register your opinion…

www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/119005155 and www.busterknight.net

Maybe if enough of us do this, the government will sit up and take notice and stop handing out sentences that are meaningless in the long run; life isn’t 15 or 19 or even 25 years. Life should mean life as in, no freedom ever again, however, if that’s not feasible then raising the minimum tariff to 25 years should be introduced and fast, before yet more innocent young lives are taken.

I hope Melanie and Stephen can find some peace but I suspect they won’t. I don’t think I could when the people who stole such a precious life are still alive and may well be free in a few years.

If you missed this very moving documentary, you can watch it on ITV’s catch-up player here.