Sadistic sleepover plan teens carried out on innocent boy, 15, after luring him to park

Three teenagers re-enacted a scene from the film Reservoir Dogs as they sadistically tortured and then murdered a schoolboy in one of Merseyside's most heinous cases. Michael Moss, who was just 15 at the time, was tortured to death by Mark McKeefrey, Allan Bentley and Graham Neary on the Litherland playing fields in 1999.

The three brutish killers, who were all in their mid-teens when they carried out the sickening attack, were found guilty of murder after a high profile, 17-day trial at Liverpool Crown Court. The court heard the three boys had subjected Michael to "sustained and appalling violence", at one point re-enacting a scene from Quentin Tarantino's 1992 film Reservoir Dogs.

The court case, which would ultimately go on to be known as the "Reservoir Dogs killing", shocked the country. Bentley and McKeefrey were revealed to have been well-known bullies, fired up by jealousy and fuelled by vodka, while Neary attempted to distance himself from the other two.

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It emerged the sickening assault was planned at a sleepover and orchestrated because of Bentley's jealousy that Michael was seeing his ex-girlfriend. All three of the killers have since been released from prison, despite efforts from Michael's mum, after serving minimum tariffs on their life sentences. As part of a series looking back at Merseyside's criminal history, the ECHO has looked back at the attack, which occurred 25 years ago this month.

The three killers and their helpless victim had all attended the Pinefield Referral Unit in Formby - a school for disruptive children. Michael was also a voluntary resident at the local authority Sterrix Lane Assessment Centre at the time of the attack. Reports from the time said he was taken into Sefton Council's care because he suffered emotional difficulties after his dad died from a stroke three years before.

On the day before the attack he had been with his older brother, before he returned home. After receiving a call at around 12.35am the following day, he said he was popping out for 10 minutes. While he had been with his brother, his killers had been drinking alcohol at a sleepover to celebrate 15-year-old Bentley's forthcoming birthday.

The trial would later hear he had an unhealthy interest in violent films - as well as a tendency to draw shockingly violent comic strips that showed people being attacked with hammers and bleeding from gaping wounds. He was said to have bore a grudge against Michael after he had begun to go out with his ex-girlfriend.

A week before the murder, he boasted he was going to "kill Mossy and kick his head in everywhere". Bentley, fired up after downing cider and vodka, would be the first to attack Michael after the three lured him to the school playing field. Cornering Michael by a climbing frame, Bentley floored him with a head butt, before stripping him naked apart from his socks.

The three killers proceeded to rain down countless punches and kicks to Michael's head, chest, back and groin in a prolonged assault over a two-hour period. His body was found at around 7.38am by a man walking his dog on the Moss Lane playing fields close to the swings. Michael was naked and covered in mud, lying on his back with his right arm across the chest.

There was clear evidence of an horrific beating - his face was a deep red and swollen and his right ear was partially severed. Remnants of a vodka bottle were found nearby. Police determined Michael had suffered more than 100 separate injuries including 49 areas of multiple stab and slash wounds made with the bottle.

The trial later heard the boys had sung 'Stuck in the middle with you' - the song used in the infamous torture scene in Tarantino's film. The depravity of the case evoked comparisons with the killing of James Bulger, who was abducted and murdered by Robert Thompson and Jon Venables six years earlier.

The three boys, who were all 16 by the time the case went to trial in 2000, were found guilty of Michael's murder. The jury delivered a unanimous verdict on Bentley and McKeefrey, from Litherland and Bootle respectively, after 12 hours, while Neary, from Crosby, was found guilty on a majority verdict after nearly 16 hours of deliberation.

As the jury delivered the verdict, Bentley and McKeefrey did not react, while Neary broke down and cried in the dock. Michael's sister broke down amid cries of "yes" from the public gallery. The female members of the jury wept when the final verdict was delivered.

Mr Justice Penry-Davey, who presided over the trial, told the boys: "You lured Michael Moss out on that night, you stripped him naked and in due course, the three of you killed him. Having attacked and injured him so that he was unable to move, you left him and later the three of you went to the scene where the appalling violence continued.

"As a result of that attack, Michael Moss sustained appalling multiple injuries internally and externally as a result of which he died." Speaking after the verdict, Michael’s mum Liz Moss labelled the boys as "evil and sadistic". She added: "They should suffer like we will for the rest of our lives. We will never come to terms with it. They have destroyed our lives. I will never forgive them."

Following the culmination of the trial, more details emerged of the background of the killers. Bentley and McKeefrey were known troublemakers in the area and had been sent to the centre following their exclusion from Litherland High School.

The exclusion was said to be because the pair had beaten up another 15-year-old boy close to where they would go on to murder Michael. After Michael's murder the director of education at Sefton Education Authority said: "Bentley and McKeefrey were expelled from Litherland High for a violent attack on a boy which caused him serious injury.

"But we never saw any sign of anything to this extent, and the headteachers at Pinefield would all say the same. Yes, the boys were expelled for assault on another child but children do get expelled for things like that and no-one thinks it will ever lead on to something like this. We had no indication that anything like this could possibly happen."

Detectives who investigated the case said Bentley was "a cold individual". Detective Sergeant Roy Woodall said: "We certainly feel the reason for the attack on Michael was purely and simply some jealousy by Bentley and McKeefrey." McKeefrey, who made the phone call to lure Michael to the playing field, remained cool in the witness box - only breaking character when he was asked by his own counsel to look at photos of his victim's body.

He gave the jury a graphic account of how Bentley tried to cut Michael's ear, adding the latter laughed about the killing the next morning. But detectives went against his claims - and said they believed McKeefrey was actually the one who slashed at Michael's ear. Bentley and McKeefrey glared at their co-defendant Neary as he told the jury he was "too scared" of them and was told to join the attack.

Neary, who sat next to his weeping mum throughout the proceedings, would attempt to distance himself from Bentley and McKeefrey throughout the proceedings. He even handed himself into police and told officers about the attack. But police said his involvement was significantly greater than he made out, with Detective Chief Inspector Bob Marsden telling the press: "His shoes were the most extensively bloodied of the lot."

Michael's mum Ms Moss campaigned extensively to try and keep her son's killers behind bars. She was one of the first to be involved in a new government scheme which meant she could explain her continuing grief to prison parole boards who determined the fate of the three killers.

Ms Moss travelled to prisons in attempts to meet them face-to-face, but in an interview in the ECHO in 2013, she said: "I can't move on with my life as I'm fighting the system all the time. I’m having to deal with these three people once again. It’s just too much."

She added: "I'm disabled in not knowing what they do in prison. It's all very well saying they've been rehabilitated. But how do I know? If they have shown remorse and they are going to make good of their lives then so be it. But don't come back and haunt me on Merseyside."

The ECHO also continued to follow the case of the three men while they were behind bars. In 2012, this paper revealed how Bentley - just weeks before he attempted to win his freedom at a parole hearing - allegedly threatened a woman who gave evidence against him at the trial.

The ECHO reported how he allegedly sent her a Facebook message, causing her to panic, but the investigation was closed after the woman decided not to take the matter any further. The ECHO reported that Ms Moss called on the parole hearing to be cancelled - adding: "Clearly he is not rehabilitated enough to be let out into society."

The ECHO also reported how McKeefrey had the opportunity to come face-to-face with Ms Moss, who travelled to the prison the then 25-year-old was in, to read a prepared statement to a panel to dissuade them not to decategorise the killer. The devastated mum said: "He was in the next room to me, but would not come out. That shows he has not been rehabilitated..."I think McKeefrey owed it to me to see me, but declining shows he has no remorse whatsoever."

By the latter half of the 2010s, all three of the murderers had been released from prison. But it didn't stop McKeefrey reappearing in the pages of the ECHO, when the now grown man posted a selfie on Facebook enjoying a meal in a restaurant. The person who sent it to the ECHO in August of 2018 said: "In some of the pictures McKeefrey had a partner with him. We just hope she knows who he really is. I would hate to think he has misled her about his horrific past."

While the three killers have stayed out of the pages of the ECHO since, their horrific crimes - and the impact the murder still continues to have on Merseyside a quarter of a century later - will undoubtedly continue for many more years to come.