A teenage boy wrote down the name of a suspect yesterday at the inquest into the unsolved murder of 15-year-old Jessie James, who died in a hail of bullets in a park in Manchester last year.

He spelt out the name in capital letters of a boy who had “fingered” the murder victim as a “Doddy”, a member of the rival Doddington Gang, to members of the Gooch Close gang.

The teenager, who can be identified only as Witness D, suggested that the suspect’s actions had effectively placed Jessie in danger and that he had been ambushed by the Gooch Close Gang several days later as he cycled through Broadfield Park, in Moss Side.

It was a dramatic twist on the opening day of an inquest that Nigel Meadows, the coroner, has turned into a platform for fresh evidence in a determined attempt to break the wall of silence surrounding the death.

The coroner offered witnesses unprecedented rights to anonymity. Witnesses gave evidence from a secret location and their voices were distorted so that people in the public gallery were unable to recognise even if the speaker was male, female, old or young.

The videolink was seen only by the coroner, who reassured each witness that he understood that they may feel fearful or apprehensive about giving evidence about the gangs that hold sway in part of South Manchester.

At the start of the inquest, Mr Meadows issued two warrants for the arrest of witnesses who had failed to appear. Police believe that people within the community know the identity of the gunmen but are too frightened to talk for fear of retribution.

In the most compelling evidence, Witness D said he had been with Jessie and others on the night of the murder.

Witness D, Jessie, and another teenage boy had been standing outside the West Indian Sports and Social Club in Moss Side. Witness D had wanted to “check out” a nearby party and set off on his bike. But as he did so, the other teenage boy had told Jessie that it might not be a good thing to follow his friends into the park on his bicycle.

“I do not know why it was not a good idea to go into the park because all our friends had been in before,” recalled the witness. “It did seem a bit odd”.

Jessie had then left on his bicycle. Soon afterwards, Witness D said, he heard about 11 gunshots coming from a grass verge beside the Powerhouse, a club in the park. “I heard it and saw the sparks from the gun,” he added. “When I looked up I saw the bikes scattering.”

Fearing for his friend’s safety, he rang Jessie’s mobile phone only to see it flashing in the darkness some distance away in the park.

Mr Meadows said to Witness D: “There has been an awful lot of talk about what has happened to Jessie over the last 11 months, a lot of gossip about those people who might know things or be suspected of doing things. At the time of this incident had Jessie been threatened by anybody?”

Witness D replied that Jessie had been threatened by a boy three or four days earlier. When asked how, the witness replied: “Because one boy tried to call him Doddy in front of Gooch boys.”

Asked whether he believed that Jessie had been a member of a gang, the witness replied: “No, he was not.” Mr Meadows asked: “If he was not a member of a gang why would one man saying he was a member of a gang make any difference?”

“Because Doddington and Gooch hate each other,” the witness said. “If you are called Doddington in front of Gooch boys they are going to think something of them.”

Witness D was cross-examined by Pete Weatherby, counsel for the family. Asked if the difficulty Jessie had experienced several days previously had been connected to his murder, he replied: “I think it was.”

The witness was then asked to write down the name of the teenage boy who had exposed Jessie as a Doddington gang member. The piece of paper was later handed to the coroner, who told counsel that he would not be surprised by the name.

Witness D said that on the night of the murder the other teenage boy had appeared to try to get Jessie to hang back from going into the park. Asked whether it had appeared that the other teenager had known that something was going to happen, the witness replied: “Yes.” Earlier another witness, identified only as Witness A, also described the moment around 1am when Jessie was ambushed in the park. He said that Jessie was shot at least three times.

The witness added: “The person was taking aim with one hand, stretching his arm and firing into the figure who was 6ft away. As soon as the figure went down on to the ground he stopped firing.”

Other witnesses appeared noticeably reluctant to add anything to their sparse statements.

The inquest continues at Manchester Crown Court today.

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