Smith in witness protection vow

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Ms Smith, speaking about the latest victim, 11-year-old Rhys Jones, said witnesses needed to feel confident to be able to give evidence.

Speaking on Channel 4 News, Ms Smith called on the public to help police catch the killers and said she felt "terrible" about his death.

She said: "I am willing to consider anything that will help us to get the information to put people away."

Ms Smith said: "Can I say how terrible we feel about what has happened to Rhys and how obviously our hearts go out to the family and the local community."

She added: "We need the community to help in catching these people and we will hunt them down and we need the evidence to be able to put them away for what they have done."

She went on: "One of the issues, of course, as the Chief Constable made clear in Liverpool, is that we need people in local communities to be willing to firstly stand up against gun crime, but also to give information to the police to be willing to come forward.

"That doesn't always mean that they will need to act as witnesses but we need people to feel confident about that."

She pointed to recent examples in Manchester and Birmingham where, she said, witnesses had been protected so they felt more able to give evidence.

Ms Smith also said areas of Britain where gun crime was high needed to have more resources targeted at them.