A TEENAGER who was shot dead as he returned home from a youth club may have been mistaken for somebody else.

Jessie James, a softly spoken 15-year-old who regularly helped his local pastor, was described by police as an innocent victim of gun crime who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was the youngest victim of lawlessness in Moss Side, the notorious inner-city suburb of Manchester, since Benji Stanley, 14, was caught in crossfire in 1993 as he queued for a takeaway meal.

Jessie was hit by bullets from a semi-automatic pistol as he stopped to speak to a passer-by in Moss Side Community Park early on Saturday morning. He fell from his mountain bike close to a basketball court and died after being hit by three bullets. Two hit his torso and one lodged in his appendix.

Initially police investigating the shooting indicated that Jessie had died in a “targeted attack”. But yesterday Detective Superintendent Tony Cooke said that officers had gathered no intelligence to suggest that the dead teenager had been a member of a gang.He said that the most likely explanation was that Jessie “just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time”.

“I think it was perhaps mistaken identity. There’s no shred of evidence to suggest he was a member of any gang.”

The dead teenager’s mother, Barbara Reid, 47, last night paid tribute to her “precious baby boy” and vehemently insisted that he had not been a member of the gang.

Mrs Reid, a stalwart of the local Seventh Day Adventist Church, said: “Jessie was a lively, bubbly boy who was loved by everyone. He was well liked and would be the first to offer to clean people’s windows or cut the grass.”

She said that her son was a Manchester City supporter who loved the outdoors and music, adding: “I just feel a great gulf of loss in my life. I don’t know what to do without him.I brought Jessie up in the church and he would go every week until he was about 11.

“Even after he stopped going, he kept God with him and he remembered what he’d learnt from the Bible. He used to quote the Scriptures to me and was always reminding me to go to church.”

Yesterday Mrs Reid spelt out her son’s Christian name in candles on the front patio of the house where he had lived with his sister. She greeted wellwishers and friends with hugs and tears.

Jessie’s sister Rosemary, 28, said last night: “All I feel is emptiness. We are a close family, and anything that Jessie couldn’t tell mum he would tell me. We shared everything.”

Police have increased patrols in Moss Side, once synonymous with gun crime, where there have been a number of violent incidents recently.

This summer, residents had celebrated how their lives had changed for the better since the riots a quarter of a century ago. But the upsurge in violence brought about by young men, their faces disguised under hoodies, has raised the spectre of a new turf war.

A red bandana had been tied to the gates of the community park, close to what used to be called the “front line”, as a makeshift tribute to the dead teenager. Floral tributes began to spread across the pathway.

The teenager is understood to have spent Friday night at the Millennium Powerhouse youth club, part of a larger regeneration project, on the edge of the community park.

He left to make his way to a friend’s house but became separated from friends when he stopped to speak to a passer-by.

Police spent yesterday examining the spot where he fell, which was hidden from view by a tent. Witnesses suggested that the officers had marked out at least ten spots where shell casings had fallen.

Mrs Reid said that a friend of her son came “hammering” on her door in the early hours with news of the shooting. She ran to the park, only to be told to go home by the officers on the scene.

She has criticised police for the nine hours it took for a family liaison officer to arrive at her home and confirm her son’s death.

Officers fear that the shooting could lead to revenge attacks. Community leaders in Moss Side have fought hard to throw off its unwanted image as the British Bronx.

The fatal shooting is the second to take place in Raby Street in a year, and the road appears to be something of a dividing line between gangs.

In June, Ernest Gifford, 45, was shot dead in a house in the same street in a case believed to have been related to drugs. No arrests have been made.

In August, a gun battle broke out in Pepperhill Road between a hooded gang and the occupants of a car. It prompted a series of drive-by shootings.

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