She also captains Surrey in the English County Championship and works for them in a development role. She found Rhys lying in a pool of blood in the car park of the nearby Fir Tree pub. You must be a millionaire.’ Steve shakes his head. He needed to get back to work, to re-establish some kind of routine. Why didn’t they ask what we thought?’, The breadth and depth of the gang warfare in Liverpool that Rhys’s killing exposed still seems surreal. To him, evidence of Rhys is all around – from a tree carving with his initials to the dents in the garage door; Ste felt that moving would be like abandoning Rhys. Because it was such a part of Rhys, I hadn’t wanted to change a thing but she was right when she said we would have to do it if we were going to put the house on the market. Owen once had to usher Mel out of a shopping centre because so many people came up to hug her that she broke down.
‘We still visit him twice a week and make sure he always has flowers,’ says Mel. It was bizarre.’, Last year, Little Boy Blue, a four-part TV drama screened ten years after Rhys’s death, won a number of awards and Rhys’s story has also been back in the headlines recently, with the revelation that James Yates, the gang member who supplied the gun used by Sean Mercer, was asking to be allowed back into the area where he once lived, just yards from the Joneses’ door (the terms of his parole have so far banned him from returning). Download Images Watch Videos online In 2015, Jones was announced as one of four female commentators to commentate on the 2015 Indian Premier League. She returned to the side for the series against England in 2003. ‘I tried to do all I could to minimise the pressure on Mel, not to get her upset, not to be reliving everything every day,’ he says. He got comfort from watching Rhys joking and running around, but I couldn’t do that. Jones has worked as an Ambassador with Australian charity, Red Dust, which promotes health initiatives in remote Aboriginal communities. It’s her attempt at a disguise.
‘We can’t leave all the memories of Rhys behind and move away.’ So we decided not to sell the house. They have learnt to laugh again, to take pleasure in life and focus on the happy years they had with Rhys rather than the future they have lost. It was July 2011 and I was in the bedroom when he came in from his night shift. ‘You read this stuff in the papers, of course. ‘I kept thinking, “Why didn’t I know what was going on?” And so close to where we live,’ says Mel… As the demand for same sex marriage to be legalised in Australia continues to gain momentum Alex Blackwell, the national cricket team's vice … ‘I’m leaving,’ he said, bluntly. Read about Mel Jones's Profile, Latest News, Articles, Career updates only on ESPNcricinfo.com. Mel and her husband Steve were simultaneously faced with the devastating loss of their child and a bewildering world of guns, violence and death that existed on their doorstep. This was murder,’ says Mel. But our boys [they have an elder son, Owen, now 28] didn’t mix with gangs.’. First she went blonde.
August 11, 1972, Barnstaple, Devon, Major teams Australia Women, Victoria Women, Mel Jones was brought up in Melbourne but gained much of her cricketing pedigree from her West Indian father, even though she didn't meet him until she was 16. Mel Jones Wiki: Salary, Married, Wedding, Spouse, Family Melanie Jones (born 11 August 1972, Barnstaple, Devon, England) is a former Australian cricketer. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. Mel was an elite player.
She made her Test debut in 1998, but a dip in form led to a two-year absence from the international scene including, frustratingly, missing the Ashes tour of 2000. Cricket Australia put Jones' name forward in 2007 to commentate on the women's Twenty20 international, covered by Australia's Channel 9. I can guarantee that when we walk out of here today someone will recognise us,’ says Mel. Now her hair is shoulder-length and grey.
I could only just get through each day.’, The worst point was after the trial: ‘I’ve seen families on the news when they “get justice” and you think, “They got what they needed and they’ll be able to move on,” but for me, justice wasn’t going to bring Rhys back. The police told them the ‘postcode’ rivalry between the so-called Crocky Crew and Nogga Dogz over the right to sell drugs was so intense that if Rhys was buried near the family home his grave might be vandalised. She had been expecting to hear her 11-year-old son Rhys arrive home from after-school football. ‘I kept thinking, “Why didn’t I know what was going on?” And so close to where we live,’ says Mel, as if she still can’t quite believe it. The investigation and subsequent trial of seven teenagers connected to the murder (all of whom were found guilty, with Mercer, who fired the gun, getting the longest sentence: life imprisonment with a minimum of 22 years) exposed the huge gulf between their chaotic upbringing and the way Mel and Steve had raised their children. I didn’t have the energy to argue.’ Steve moved into a flat nearby. Ironically, a short while later, Ste dropped a bombshell. Together, Ste and I sorted out all Rhys’s stuff. [7] She played 122 games for the Victorian Spirit in the Australian Women's National Cricket League, and then five Women's Twenty20 cricket games for the Tasmanian Roar. He was watching a film of our holidays. After a couple of years of living with my memories and the emptiness that Rhys had left behind, I came to the conclusion that we should move house. Almost two years after Rhys was killed, Steve was pruning a tree in the garden and found ‘RJ-07’ inscribed on the bark. Pouring coffee in a Liverpool city-centre hotel, where we meet to talk about Mel’s book, Stay With Me, Rhys – the first time she and Steve have given their account of the crime and its aftermath – Steve, 55, looks every inch the calm, reserved tower of strength he tried to be in the weeks and months after Rhys’s death as they were buffeted by the media storm, gruelling criminal trial and all-consuming grief. Just after 7.30pm on a summer evening in 2007, Mel Jones heard a knock at the front door of her home in Liverpool. ‘I don’t want to upset you but you’ll have to decorate this room,’ she said, kindly. ‘We’re not perfect,’ says Steve, ‘but we worked hard and we tried to put our boys on the right path; we were just an ordinary happy family. 1997 Women's Cricket World Cup (4th title), Lancashire and Cheshire Women cricket team, "Women's National Cricket League Records 1996/7 to present", "Breaking glass ceilings, the Melanie Jones way", "CricketArchive - Teams Melanie Jones Played for", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mel_Jones&oldid=985275264, Australia women One Day International cricketers, Women cricketers who made a century on Test debut, All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English, Pages containing links to subscription-only content, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 25 October 2020, at 01:01.