Sean Mercer was a defeatist who utilized a firearm to understand debates and lift his road picture. 

The school drop-out invested his energy riding the avenues on his unmistakable £300 trail blazing bicycle and staying nearby the homes of his layabout companions and smoking cannabis. 

In any case, what made Mercer various was his dangerous enthusiasm for the silly posse quarrel that seethed in the city close to his home - and his ability to get a weapon. 

One of three youngsters, with a more established sister Danielle and more youthful sibling Joseph, he was supposed to be a promising footballer. 

Mercer's father, physical preparing teacher Joseph McCormick, once stood blamed close by disfavored previous head for Merseyside CID Elmore Davies, Warrior from TV's Gladiators, and imprisoned agent Philip Glennon Snr. 

He was taken shots at when he was head bouncer at The Venue dance club in Green Lane, Tuebrook. 

McCormick, 55, from Everton, was later captured and accused of "withdrawing without great purpose unique observer proclamations". 

In any case, he was cleared when the adjudicator decided that Merseyside police unlawfully got the proof against him and others. 

Mercer spent his initial years being instructed at St Teresa's in Norris Green, the half of L11 he would later develop to loathe. What's more, throughout the late spring occasions he was an ordinary at police plans intended to keep youngsters off the boulevards. 

For quite a long time he went to the Robbie the Bobby football camp run by nearby PC Rob Pritchard. 

One youth told the ECHO: "Everybody knows him. He'll meander around with his hood up with his strut and you can reveal to it's him regardless of whether you can't see his face. 

"Or then again he'll be on his bicycle. Everybody saw him on that bicycle. 

"He has a notoriety. Him, Yatesy [also sentenced James Yates] and Quinn [Nathan Quinn]. They're not the top young men however. 

"He'll get directly in your face, no issue with that. In any case, in the event that somebody ventures back to him, he won't battle them. 

"He'll go off and he'll get a gat [gun] and afterward he'll return and take shots at somebody's home or pursue them in the road. 

"He'd never have anybody a straight battle cos he's not the greatest or hardest. Be that as it may, having a weapon makes you hard." 

The jury in the homicide preliminary was not permitted to hear an announcement given to police by a Norris Green young person after Rhys was shot. 

The 17-year-old approached to tell police that two months before Rhys was killed, he professed to have seen a young on a motorbike being trailed by a youngster by walking displaying a firearm in the road. 

The shooter, the kid guaranteed, was Mercer. 

One stated: "Sean is handily driven and not so much that sharp. Who proceeds to shoot over a vehicle leave on a bright night outside a bar that is indicating the match and will plainly have CCTV? 

"Up until two or three years prior he was an okay chap. He simply used to continue ahead with playing footy and that. 

"However, that is the way they do it. Yatesy's several years more seasoned and he began as one of [convicted group member] Liam Duffy's sellers, making a couple of quid to a great extent and that. 

"And afterward he becomes more acquainted with Sean and kind of attracts him. Presently they're best mates. 

"Sean's nothing to take a gander at. He's tallish however he's slender and pale. On the off chance that you got in a piece with him you'd extravagant your odds, no issue. 

"Be that as it may, everybody's hard with a weapon."