Five found guilty of murdering two boys in Bristol in case of mistaken identity

Four teenagers and a 45-year-old man have been convicted of murdering two boys who they had mistaken for the perpetrators of an earlier attack on a house in Bristol linked to a long-running postcode rivalry.

Mason Rist, 15, and Max Dixon, 16, were fatally attacked in the Knowle West area of the city on the evening of 27 January.

Bristol crown court heard the group of five defendants – Antony Snook, 45, Riley Tolliver, 18, and three boys aged 15, 16 and 17 – had driven to the area in Snook’s Audi with “some pretty fearsome weapons”.

The group was seeking revenge for an attack on a house in the Hartcliffe area of Bristol, in which windows were smashed and a woman was injured, but they were “entirely wrong” in thinking Mason and Max were responsible, the court heard.

The origin of the events in the case could be linked to a rivalry of many years between Hartcliffe, or BS13, and Knowle, or BS4, the jury was told.

On Friday, the jury found all five defendants guilty of the murders of both boys. The 15-year-old defendant, who was 14 at the time of the attack, had already pleaded guilty to the murder of Mason, while the 17-year-old, who was 16 at the time of the killings, had also admitted manslaughter in the case of Max but denied murdering either boy.

The attack was captured by a CCTV camera on Mason’s home in footage lasting two and a half minutes that was played to the jury on Wednesday.