A getaway driver who ferried four teenagers around before they murdered two best friends with machetes in a case of mistaken identity has been jailed for life.
Mason Rist, 15, and Max Dixon, 16, were hacked to death after being ‘hunted’ through the streets of Bristol by a gang of youths who were ‘armed to the teeth’ and bent on revenge for an earlier skirmish.
But the city’s crown court heard the pals were wrongly identified and had absolutely nothing to do with the prior incident.
Antony Snook, 45, Riley Tolliver, 18, and three teenagers aged 15, 16 and 17 – who cannot be named for legal reasons – were all found guilty of the double murder last Friday.
Snook, a one-legged landscape gardener, did not get out of the car but was convicted under joint enterprise, with jurors told the murders could not have been carried out had he not driven the killers to and from the scene.
He was given a life sentence today with a minimum term of 38 years.
Jailing him, judge Mrs Justice May said it was ‘impossible to fathom’ why he had agreed to drive the four boys in his car to the area.
‘The boys you took were then 14, 15, 16 and 17,’ she said.
‘The three younger ones had long knives. The 17-year-old had a baseball bat. The recovered knives were truly fearsome.
‘You would have experienced the atmosphere in that car. Felt the blood lust. Mason and Max, tragically in the wrong place at the wrong time.
‘It took those boys 33 seconds to chase and stab Mason and Max. All of this was captured by the CCTV camera on the front of Mason’s home. It is profoundly distressing viewing.’
The mothers of the murdered boys both gave heartbreaking statements setting out the impact of the killings.
Max’s mum Leanne Ekland said: ‘I sat on the ground with Max’s head between my legs, telling him to open his eyes. He said he just wanted to sleep.
‘The paramedics were working on him, cutting away at his clothes. He was so pale.’
Ms Ekland told how she screamed after being told at Southmead Hospital that her son would not survive his injuries.
‘We were taken to a room where a doctor came in and said, “I am sorry…” I didn’t let him finish. I screamed and ran out of the room and fell to the floor,’ she said.
‘My heart was ripped out and the pain was unbearable. I knew then my life had been changed and my heart ripped out. I have never felt so much pain.’
Mason’s mum Nikki Knight said in a victim impact statement read by prosecutor Ray Tully KC that ‘she hopes that Mason will still walk through her door, though she knows that will never happen’.
Mr Tully went on: ‘She, as a mother, feels she failed to protect her son. That is a thought that will stay with her.
‘Ultimately, she says when trying to find words to put her emotions and feelings down on paper, it is an impossible task.
‘She speaks about the fact she still can’t go into his bedroom because of the feelings she knows she will have, simply being in that room.’
Snook drove Tolliver and the three boys to and from West Knowle as part of their misguided revenge mission.
Mason and Max had been wrongly identified as being responsible for bricks being thrown at a house in the rival Hartcliffe district earlier that evening.
Around an hour after that attack, Snook left the property with two of the boys and picked up the other two in a nearby street before heading to Knowle West.
The Audi Q2 was driven around Knowle West for at least 12 minutes before the attack, the jury was told.
Snook drove down Ilminster Avenue when they saw Mason and Max in the street as they went for a pizza – wrongly believing they had spotted those responsible for the attack.
Mr Tully told the jury: ‘They were entirely wrong about that. Max and Mason had absolutely nothing to do with any earlier incident and no connection whatsoever with those events.’
Tolliver, who had a baseball bat, and the three teenagers armed with machetes jumped out of the car and chased after the two boys.
Max and Mason are seen going to different sides of the street, each pursued by two people from the vehicle.
Tolliver and the 15-year-old boy attacked Mason while the 16-year-old boy and 17-year-old boy chased Max.
The 17-year-old boy also struck Mason, who was lying injured on the ground, as he headed back to the Audi after attacking Max.
A CCTV camera on Mason’s nearby house captured how the attack lasted just 33 seconds from the car pulling up to the teenagers getting back in and leaving.
Mason and Max sustained fatal stab injuries, and both died in hospital in the early hours of January 28.
Mrs Justice May appeared emotional as she described the young friends as ‘two good boys from loving homes’.
She praised their families for the ‘dignity and grace’ shown during their attendance at the six-week trial.
The judge told the court: ‘Mason, 15, and Max, 16, had been best friends for a long time.
‘These were two good boys from loving homes with their whole lives ahead of them.’
She described the ‘burning sense of unfairness of the attack on these two boys’ who were walking to get something to eat.
‘Nothing can undo the dreadful events of that night, or bring Mason or Max back,’ the judge said.
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