A 45-year-old man has been found guilty of driving from Swindon to help a group murder two teenagers.

Antony Snook acted as the getaway driver for four armed teenagers who chased and fatally stabbed 15-year-old Mason Rist and 16-year-old Max Dixon in a deadly case of mistaken identity in Bristol at about 11pm on January 27 this year.

A Bristol Crown Court jury found Snook, 18-year-old Riley Tolliver, and two other boys aged 16 and 17 who cannot be named due to their age guilty of murdering Max and Mason.

At the end of the six-week trial, jurors also found a 15-year-old boy guilty of the murder of Max after he previously pleaded guilty to killing Mason.

Snook had driven up from Swindon earlier that day, then took Tolliver and the three younger boys to and from Knowle West as part of a revenge mission.

(Image: Avon and Somerset Police) The two victims 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 defendants and picked up the other two in a nearby street before heading to Knowle West.

The Audi Q2 was driven around there for at least 12 minutes before the attack.

Snook drove down Ilminster Avenue and, when they saw Mason and Max in the street, they wrongly believed they had spotted those responsible for the attack.

Ray Tully KC, prosecuting, 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.

Snook drove the teenagers from the scene and dropped them off in Knowle West.

Giving evidence, he claimed he thought he was driving the teenagers in his Audi Q2 disability car to a “safe house” after the attack on the Hartcliffe property.

When he was told to stop in Ilminster Avenue he believed they were outside the safe house, Snook alleged.

The landscape gardener, who lost a leg in a road accident, insisted he did not know the boys were carrying weapons and was looking in his rear view mirror at the time Max and Mason were attacked.

“I thought they had got into a fight or something. I didn’t want to be involved with it. I didn’t think it was something that cost two people their lives,” he said.

“I just thought it was something stupid between Hartcliffe and Knowle that I had been dragged into. I didn’t realise anyone had been seriously hurt.”

Mason and Max sustained fatal stab injuries and both died in hospital in the early hours of January 28.

A fire was lit in a back garden and items linked to the attack disposed of.

Meanwhile, the 16-year-old boy picked up a McDonald’s meal and drinks just six hours after the attack.

The four teenagers did not give evidence during the trial.

But the jury was told the 16-year-old had been covertly recorded in custody saying he had heard Mason screaming during the attack and “had to sort of join in”.

He also said he had put on “loads more tracksuits” and left his phone behind before heading to Knowle West.

In closing speeches to the jury, barristers representing the teenagers said there was no joint plan to attack the two boys.

Speaking after the verdicts, Detective Superintendent Gary Haskins, senior investigating officer at Avon and Somerset Police, said Max and Mason had been going for a pizza when they were fatally attacked in a case of mistaken identity.

“They are beautiful boys, going about their business, in their own community when they were senselessly attacked by the individuals for no reason,” he told the PA news agency.

“What we know is that they passed Max when he was walking towards Mason’s house. Then Mason walks out of his house and joins Max.

“The vehicle is passing, they think ‘that’s them, they will do’. They were hunting around Knowle to find people.

“We know they had driven around Knowle two and a half times before they came across these two boys.”

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