Police investigating the murder of 11-year-old Liverpool schoolboy Rhys Jones charged two people on Tuesday with trying to pervert the course of justice and summonsed two others for the same offence.

Jones was shot in the neck in the Liverpool suburb of Croxteth last August after returning from football practice, a high-profile murder that shocked the nation and added to growing fears of youth crime.

Merseyside Police said they had charged James Hughes, 22, from Croxteth, and an unnamed 48-year-old woman, also from the area.

They named the two people summonsed as Francis Yates, 48, and Marie Yates, 50, both from Liverpool.

All four will appear before Liverpool magistrates on June 17.

In April, police charged a 17-year-old with Jones' murder, and charged three other youths and three men - James Yates, 20, Melvyn Coy, 24 and Gary Kayes, 25 - with assisting an offender.

The youths were not named for legal reasons.