UK NEWS

RHYS THUG IN SOLITARY FOR 'STABBING' FELLOW KILLER

Mercer ‘used tweezers’

Thursday November 5,2009

By Tony Brooks

THE gun killer of schoolboy Rhys Jones was being held in solitary confinement yesterday after allegedly stabbing another teenage murderer in prison.

Shaven-headed gang member Sean Mercer, 18, is said to have launched a vicious attack on 19-year-old Jake Fahri who is serving a minimum of 14 years for slashing the throat of former altar boy Jimmy Mizen.

Another prisoner is thought to have held down Fahri.

Then Mercer, believed to be trying to establish his hardman image behind bars, allegedly lashed out with a “knife” fashioned from a sharpened pair of tweezers taped together.

Fahri was taken to hospital for treatment to back wounds following the brawl on Monday in the exercise yard at Moorlands Young Offenders Institute, Doncaster, South Yorks..

Mercer, who is serving a minimum 22 years, has never shown any remorse for the murder of 11-year-old Everton fan Rhys in August, 2007.

He is expected to be questioned by police about the alleged attack on Fahri.

Fahri, who killed Jimmy, 16, during a petty argument in a London bakery in May last year suffered wounds close to his spine but escaped serious injury. He was treated by paramedics and returned to custody after having stitches. At first prison guards thought they were breaking up a routine fist fight – apparently not the first involving Mercer since he was locked up – but they were shocked to find Fahri covered in blood.

They are believed to have discovered the weapon when they managed to overwhelm Mercer who has allegedly clashed with prison staff several times since he was convicted in December 2008. A Prison Service spokesman said: “A fight broke out between three prisoners. Staff acted quickly to control the situation and one prisoner was taken to an outside hospital for treatment.”

South Yorkshire Police confirmed they were investigating the attack.

Both killings by Mercer and Fahri created waves of revulsion.

Mercer, a member of Liverpool’s notorious gang the Croxteth Crew, shot Rhys in the neck outside a pub in the city’s Croxteth Park district as he walked home from football training still wearing his strip.

Fahri threw an oven dish at Jimmy during a row in a baker’s shop near his home in Lee, south-east London. A shard of glass plunged into his neck and he bled to death in the arms of his brother Harry.

Afterwards Jimmy’s father Barry, 57, said: “We have become a country of anger, selfishness and fear. It doesn’t have to be like this. Let’s together try to stop it.”