EXCLUSIVE I was in prison with one of Britain's most notorious child killers... he strutted about like he was king of the hill - it made me sick

Daily Mail​

03-05-2025

The killer of schoolboy Rhys Jones walked around prison like he was 'king of the hill' and showed 'zero remorse' for gunning down the schoolboy in a murder which shocked the nation to its core, one of his ex-guards has revealed.
Sean Mercer was sentenced to life with a minimum of 22 years after fatally shooting 11-year-old Everton fan Rhys as he walked home from football training in Liverpool in August 2007.
The gun-obsessed thug, then aged 16, was a member of the notorious Croxteth Crew gang who were involved in a bitter territorial dispute with the Strand Gang.
When he heard they had strayed onto his 'patch', he cycled on his BMX bike to the Fir Tree pub armed with a First World War Smith & Wesson revolver and fired three times at his rivals.
The second shot hit little Rhys in the back and he died at the scene, in the arms of his mother, Melanie, who rushed to see her son when she heard what had happened.
While awaiting trial, Mercer was first locked up at the Lancaster Farms Young Offenders Institute - a prison where dozens of gang members from Manchester and Liverpool have been caged over the years.
The murder horrified the nation at the time and the story has since been retold in TV dramas such as Little Boy Blue, starring Stephen Graham and Sinead Keenan.
Now, for the first time, one of Mercer's former prison guards has revealed how the killer was behaving as he awaited his murder trial.
Lee Davies, a former guard on Mercer's wing, told MailOnline: 'Sean Mercer was one of the lads on my wing. I can safely say what a horrible little human. He showed no remorse.
'He was probably about 9 stone wet through and walked around the wing like he was king of the hill.'
Mercer was being housed in the prison while he was facing justice for his crime at Liverpool Crown Court.
But Mr Davies said he only spent around four weeks at Lancaster Fields after it quickly became apparent to other inmates who he was and he 'got a good battering'.
The ex-prison guard, who recalled seeing Mercer on a daily basis during 12 hour shifts on his wing, added: 'I always remember thinking to myself, knowing what you have done, how can you walk around with such kind of bravado and an untouchable persona.
'It shocked me that, his confidence within it all.'
Mr Davies told how prisoners were seeing the 'astronomical' media coverage of the case on their TVs, adding: 'I just couldn't understand his behaviour. If it was me I'd be wanting anything other than to come out of that cell.
'I'd be hiding in that cell, but he was the opposite.'
Mr Davies would later end up being 'groomed' and 'corrupted' by prisoners at Lancaster Farms.
He joined the prison in 2006 and spent three years working there before a group of inmates befriended him and asked him to smuggle in mobile phones and drugs for £400 each time.
After being sucked into doing it once, he spiralled into a 'stupid mental state' and became 'obsessed' with money. He pocketed around £50,000 by doing two to three deliveries to inmates a week for around a year until he was caught.
Mr Davies soon found himself on the other side of the prison bars as he was jailed for four years in 2010. He has since been released, training as an electrician before becoming a bus driver.
He describes the smuggling as a 'complete insanity' and realises he was being 'stupid and naive'. 'I think it would be stupid of me to think anything other than it was opportunist kind of grooming,' he added.
Among the inmates who passed through the prison walls while he worked there was Mercer, who was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum term of 22 years, on December 16 2008.
A string of his fellow gang members, including James Yates who supplied the gun which shot Rhys, were jailed for perverting the course of justice in a bid to protect Mercer.
Mercer, who is now housed at Durham's Frankland Prison, dubbed 'Monster Mansion', faces at least another five years behind bars before he can apply for parole.
However the parole panel will consider the many incidents which have blighted Mercer's time behind bars.
In January 2009 he was involved in a fight with another prisoner at HMP Moorland in Doncaster, South Yorkshire Staff rushed in before either man was hurt.
In November 2009 it emerged that Mercer stabbed Jake Fahri, the North London thug who murdered former altar boy Jimmy Mizen.
Mercer and a second prisoner are said to have attacked Fahri in the exercise yard at Moorland. Mercer is said to have slashed Fahri with a shank, which is a type of homemade weapon used by prisoners to attack each other.
In 2020, it also emerged that Mercer used an illegal mobile phone to initiate a relationship with a woman on the outside.
He told the woman that he was in prison after he had 'accidentally' hurt someone and wanted to be a father in the future.
The woman who became friends with Mercer said that the killer felt he had been unfairly misrepresented by the media.
She said the killing 'eats him up and he thinks about it every day.'
The woman, who later broke off the relationship, said that she did not like it when he was 'talking like a gangster'.
The discovery of the phone came just after Mercer has asked the courts to consider cutting his life sentence in half as he claimed he was a model prisoner.
Upon his sentence for murder, Mr Justice Irwin told the court: 'Rhys Jones died at your hands. His death was a tragedy for him and for his family, a waste of a promising, young life.'
The judge added: 'This offence arose from the stupid, brutal gang conflict which has struck this part of Liverpool. You were caught up in that from a young age, but it is clear you gloried in it. It is wrong to let anyone glorify or romanticise this kind of gang conflict. You are not soldiers. You have no discipline, no training, no honour. You do not command respect.
'You may think you do, but that is because you cannot tell the difference between respect and fear. You are selfish, shallow criminals, remarkable only by the danger you pose to others.'