‘Innocent’ teen pals ‘chased down & knifed to death by killers armed with fearsome weapons in case of mistaken identity’
TWO "innocent" teens were chased down and stabbed to death with "fearsome weapons" in a case of mistaken identity, a court heard.
Max Dixon, 16, and Mason Rist, 15, were unwittingly embroiled in a "postcode rivalry" in the Bristol suburb of Knowle.
Their alleged killers had wrongly identified them as the culprits of an earlier attack.
They "tooled up" before slaughtering the schoolboys using "fearsome weapons" - including two machetes, jurors were told.
Antony Snook, 45, and Riley Tolliver, 18, and three teenage boys aged 15, 16 and 17, are all jointly charged with murder.
Bristol Crown Court heard Mason and Max were simply walking down the street when they were set upon.
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CCTV showed a group jumping from an Audi Q2 and attacking the two teens on January 27.
Both pals attempted to run back towards Mason's home nearby but were separated as the gang chased them, it was said.
Tolliver and the 15-year-old boy allegedly attacked Mason, while the 16-year-old boy and 17-year-old boy are said to have chased Max.
Ray Tully KC, prosecuting, said: "The case concerns a double murder. The Crown's case is that the five defendants who sit in the dock are jointly responsible for killing two young boys.
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"Those two young boys were Mason Rist, who was aged 15 at the time of his death, and Max Dixon, who was aged 16 at the time of his death.
"Mason and Max were good friends. On January 27 this year, Max called round to Mason's home address. It was a Saturday night.
"Almost immediately upon leaving that address, as they walked onto the street they were passed by an Audi A2 car being driven by Antony Snook.
"The other four defendants were passengers in his car when he drove past the two boys."
Jurors heard the horror came following a postcode "rivalry" between the Knowle West and Hartcliffe areas of Bristol.
Around an hour before the boys were killed, a house in Hartcliffe had been attacked by youngsters hurling bricks through a window and injuring a woman.
At 11pm, Snook, Tolliver and the three teen defendants left the area having "tooled up" with "pretty fearsome weapons".
They drove from Hartcliffe to Knowle West allegedly "on the hunt" for the people they believed were responsible for the attack on the house.
Mr Tully said: "They set off together, they were on a joint mission, and we say that was for revenge.
"As they drove past Max and Mason walking down the street, they thought they had spotted the people responsible for the earlier attack - or at the very least, people connected to it.
"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."
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The five defendants have denied two counts of murder.
The trial continues.
