LONDON (AP) — Four teenagers and an adult male were convicted in a British court on Friday of stabbing two boys to death in a case of mistaken identity — killings that shocked a country already anxious about knife crime.
Mason Rist, aged 15, and Max Dixon, 16, were chased down and attacked by four youths as they went to get pizza near their homes in Bristol, southwest England, on Jan. 27 this year.
During the five-week trial at Bristol Crown Court, prosecutor Ray Tully said Rist and Dixon were the victims of a rivalry between their Knowle West neighborhood and the nearby Hartcliffe district.
He said they were wrongly identified by their attackers as being responsible for throwing bricks at a house in Hartcliffe earlier on the day of the attack.
The pair were set upon with machetes, a bat and a sword in an attack that lasted just half a minute. They died hours later in a hospital.
On Friday, the jury found all five defendants guilty of the murders of both boys.
Three defendants aged 15, 16 and 17 — who cannot be identified because of their ages — were convicted along with Riley Tolliver, 18, and getaway driver Antony Snook, 45.
All five will be sentenced at a later date.
Vicky Cook, chief crown prosecutor for southwest England, said the deaths of Rist and Dixon had “sent shockwaves through their community and the city of Bristol.”
She added: “Regardless of which individuals caused any of the fatal injuries, the evidence shows that all five (defendants) were working together and share joint responsibility for this terrible crime.”
Dixon’s mother, Leanne Ekland, said: “Today’s outcome doesn’t change the fact that two families go home without their boys. We can now hopefully begin to process that and remember them both and the happy memories that both families have of Max and Mason.
“I wish we didn’t have to be here today, but we’ve got some sort of justice for our boys.”