The mother of murdered Liverpool schoolboy Rhys Jones says bad parenting led to the fatal shooting of her beloved son.
Speaking on ITV1's 'Real Life' crime documentary, Melanie Jones said she couldn't understand the lifestyles and the lack of aspirations of the seven convicted.
In her first TV interview since the sentencing of her son's killer, Sean Mercer, she talks openly about life after the shooting and how upsetting it is to hear Rhys shouldn't have been there.
Everton fan Rhys, was killed as he walked home from football practice on a route that took him through the car park of the Fir Tree pub in Croxteth, in August 2007.
Caught in the crossfire of a teenage gang war, the 11-year-old was hit in the neck by a bullet from Mercer's gun which was intended for rival gang members.
In what the interviewer described as his most harrowing chat of his career, Melanie said: "We are not perfect but we have brought our sons up the best way that we could.
"We know where they are, who they’re with. We even know their parents.
"When you listen to the seven convicted for Rhys’s murder, what kind of life do they have?
"Why don’t they want to do something else? Why don’t they aspire to be someone?
"It upsets us to hear that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"Rhys was doing what he should have been doing, walking home from football training, it was Sean Mercer that shouldn’t have been there.
The documentary will show unseen footage of Rhys and follows Rhys’s father, Stephen, 45, as he visits his son’s old football haunts, including Goodison Park and meets the club manager David Moyes.
Mercer, 18, was convicted of murder at Liverpool Crown Court in December and will serve a minimum of 22 years.
James Yates, 20, Gary Kays, 26, Melvin Coy, 25, Nathan Quinn, 18, Dean Kelly, 17, and a youngster known as Boy M were also found guilty of helping the killer cover up his crime.
Mercer's mother, Janette, 49, was also jailed for three years for perverting the course of justice as she lied to detectives during the investigation.
The programme will be shown on ITV1 tonight at 9pm.
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