A teenage gunman "engaged in open gang warfare on the streets of Liverpool", shooting one man in the street and being caught with the gun used in another.
Joel Harvey, 17, was yesterday locked up for 12-and-a-half years after kneecapping Michael Costello when he opened fire with a pistol on Prescot Road in Old Swan. The then 16-year-old was closely linked to a second incident only weeks later in which another victim was shot in the chest.
Judge Clement Goldstone KC said on Wednesday the boy - who can be named despite his age thanks to a legal challenge by the ECHO - would have gone on to "use the pistol to settle another score with potentially fatal consequences" had he not been stopped by the police. The former Recorder of Liverpool also told Harvey he "considered himself to be above the law" and had "others do his bidding" for him in the criminal underworld.
