Mother of Rhys Jones' killer evicted
The mother of the killer of 11-year-old schoolboy Rhys Jones has been evicted from her housing association home.
Janette Mercer, 50, whose son Sean was sentenced to 22 years for shooting Rhys while attempting to fire on rival gang members, is in prison for lying to protect her son.
Yesterday’s verdict from Liverpool County Court means she will not be able to return to her home in Good Shepherd Close, Croxteth, when she leaves prison.
Her family now have two weeks to vacate the property before Riverside Housing Trust regains possession.
She had run up more than £2,000 in arrears, and anti-social behaviour from her and her family members had driven their next-door neighbours away.
Giving his verdict, Judge Graham Platts said letters to the court from Janette Mercer showed no remorse, and he had ‘no hesitation’ in finding Riverside’s case was proven.
‘In the circumstances of this case, enough is enough,’ he said.
Last week Ms Mercer also lost her appeal against her three year sentence for perverting the course of justice.
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Readers' comments (70)
Peter | 14/10/2009 9:48 am
This is good news. I hope that this person or the family will not be 'picked up' by a local authority and re-housed.
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kass | 14/10/2009 2:11 pm
Well, this lady asked for it really...
But while this might be the right result it is not the end of the affair. What is going to happen to her 14 year old and 25 year old children apparently living in that home?... With their reputation of being antisocial will they be offered any housing somewhere or left to their own devices?...
And what about the responsibility of landlords and police and council in all this? It is evident that a gang culture was ALLOWED to develop and prosper for many years, if they let this happen these are the kinds of tragedies and problems residents will have in their hands.
Had police, landlords, council been efficient from the start in helping the good residents to prosper rather than be intimidated or move away this kind of culture would not have been allowed to develop, tragedies would have not happened and evictions not taken place wasting ten times more the amount of resources it would have taken with a thoughtful prevention policy...
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Harry Lime | 14/10/2009 2:56 pm
You're absolutely right Kass, if only we'd have had an effective facism prevention policy from 1910 onwards we could have avoided two world wars and millions of dead as well..........
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kass | 14/10/2009 3:32 pm
Harry Lime | Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:56 GMT...
so you don't believe fascism could and should be prevented?... uhhhh.... we may disagree on many things and this certainly one of the biggest...
Just look at the Irak war, was enough to have an intelligence service with a little sense to find out there were no nuclear capability in Irak and not allowed us to be fed lie after lie by the Tony and George double-act, and would not that have been prevented saving almost half a million of lives?
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kass | 14/10/2009 3:49 pm
Harry Lime | Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:56 GMT...
Oh, and as you are keen on resources or, better, lack of resources, would not all the expenditure in the Irak war, if prevented as it should have been, been enough to rebuilt a whole new social housing stock from scratch across the British Isles, and left us with a a couple of billions to spare for some landscaping here and there too?
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Harry Lime | 14/10/2009 4:02 pm
Kass, your atention to detail is truly shocking - in your first post you refer to a 25 year old child(?) I'd have thought he should be able to worry about his future. And then you misread my post the "if only" might have given away the fact that I am obviously anti fascist, but it was more a response to your point that everything appears to be the failure of other people not to do something. Admittedly it would be better if everything could be tackled but occasionally bad people do bad things......
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kass | 14/10/2009 4:13 pm
Harry Lime | Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:02 GMT...
well, I am sure you are as antifascist as me... sorry for such terrible misunderstanding...
but hopefully you will also agree that until prevention is taken deadly seriously, without waiting for - sorry for the pun - deaths to happen, apart from all the miseries and huge tragedies happening to residents - resources will be wasted hundred times over just for makeshifts patching up jobs that won't have any lasting benefits. Landlords, police and councils have to get in the habit of getting things right to start with - otherwise no amount of resources thrown at them will ever be enough.
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kass | 14/10/2009 4:19 pm
In the article here "Mother of Rhys Jones' killer faces eviction".. says she has got 2 children... with those ages... so what happens now to them? Will they be thrown on the street? Will they be senbt to a hostel? What is the procedure in their cases now?
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Sancho | 14/10/2009 5:15 pm
Hi Kass, I think the point Harry is making is that prevention is, sadly, impossible. If we had a consistent government and lots of money we could get closer and, if you compare living conditions now to 100 years ago, we are certainly making progress but Utopia is still some way off. It's kind of a diminishing returns thing; the resources and time needed to tackle what's left to deal with are so enormous that the rate of progress is inevitably going to slow.
As for what will happen to the Mercer children....Hopefully, the 25 year old will see the error of her ways, get on the waiting list for a one bed flat, get housed, get a job and find out that a good life is a more rewarding choice. Equally, the 14 year old will stay with his mum, they'll get rehoused, she'll realise that she's been a terrible mother and that she has one child left to try to bring up properly and she'll make that her life's purpose.
Alternatively, they'll get housed somewhere else, terrorise another neighbourhood, the kids will be dead or in jail within 5 years and the mum will die of cirhossis of the liver or something pretty soon.
It's up to them but, sad to say, I know where I'd put my money.
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karen | 15/10/2009 7:39 am
Technically we are all children of someone but at 25 you are an adult. The 14 year old is the issue. I assume the 25 year old is the carer and so becomes the de facto parent in this circumstance. I wonder how much ASB they specifically are guilty of??
Whilst I'm never a fan of breaking a family up it might work in the favour of the 14 year old to have a more stable foster family which would solve that housing issue. The 25 year old... I have no idea...
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