The man accused of the double murder of teenagers Max Dixon and Mason Rist in Bristol in January has had his version of events challenged – by the barristers representing his co-accused.
Antony Snook, 45, has previously told the court he did not know the teenagers he drove from Hartcliffe to Knowle West were armed and he thought he was taking them to a place of safety, after a house in Hartcliffe had been attacked earlier that night.
Snook has admitted driving the car that took the four co-defendants to Ilminster Avenue in Knowle West, where Max and Mason were fatally stabbed, but claimed he didn’t realise it was a revenge mission until afterwards. But counsel for both Riley Tolliver, 18, and the 17-year-old defendant, who cannot be named because of his age, challenged Snook that he knew exactly what was happening.
The court heard that Snook started the journey with two teenagers in his car but picked up two more, including Riley Tolliver, on Bishport Avenue, before driving all four to Knowle West.
Cross examined by Ignatius Hughes KC, who is representing Tolliver, the 18-year-old defendant who has pleaded ‘not guilty’ to both murders, it was put it to Snook that he knew Riley Tolliver already, asking him: “You would have known that he was very dim, not very bright at all?” He then questioned Snook again about his statement that he agreed to take young people to a place of safety.
Pointing out that Snook had years of driving experience, had driven all around the country before, he said: “You are a proficient navigator in a car. One of the first things you ask if asked to take these kids to a place of safety, you would ask where it was, where you were going?”
“I didn’t know where I was actually going,” replied Snook.
Mr Hughes then asked Snook about picking up Riley Tolliver and a 15-year-old boy further down Bishport Avenue. Snook said: “I didn’t think nothing of it. I thought they were just coming along to support (the 17-year-old).”
In a quickfire exchange, Mr Hughes challenged Snook’s case that he didn’t see or know that the young people he was transporting were armed. “Didn’t you think anything of the fact that Riley Tolliver was waiting to be picked up with a baseball bat in his hand?” said Mr Hughes. Snook replied: “I didn’t see a baseball bat.”
“How could you have possibly missed it?” asked Mr Hughes. “I didn’t know he had a baseball bat. Unless he was hiding it.”
“When he got out of your car (on Ilminster Avenue) and walked past your driver’s window, did you see it? When he swung it while standing diagonally in front of you on the pavement, did you see it?” Snook replied ‘no’ to all the questions.
“I’m suggesting that you did see it,” concluded Mr Hughes. “And that your purpose was not to take any of these kids to a place of safety at all. You left with two kids and picked up two more, to look for the people who had attacked the house. The main purpose of the journey was to frighten the living daylights out of the people who had done it if you could find them so that they wouldn’t come back and do it again, wasn’t it?” asked Mr Hughes. Snook replied: “No.”
Earlier, Christopher Quinlan KC, the counsel for the unnamed 17-year-old, cross-examined Snook about his relationship with the teenager he is representing, before going again through the events of the evening.
Mr Quinlan asked about the return from a trip to Swindon Snook undertook that evening to buy a phone, when – in Snook’s own words, he heard that: “The house had been smashed up and Westers had done it.”
“Before you got to the house in Hartcliffe, is this right, Mr Snook, that you knew it had been attacked, windows had been bricked, a woman had been hurt, Westers were suspected,” and people there were upset and angry? Snook acknowledged that he did know this.
Mr Quinlan asked: “If it was believed that the Westers had been involved in this, a safe house would not be in Knowle, would it?” “Maybe, maybe not”, said Snook. “Somewhere safe would not have been Knowle,” repeated Mr Quinlan. “I didn’t know I was going to Knowle,” said Snook. “I’m challenging you that you were not getting directions at all, that you knew you were going to Knowle,” asked Mr Quinlan. Snook replied that he didn’t know where he was being directed to.
At the start of the proceedings on Wednesday morning, Adam Vaitilingam, defending Snook, asked the 45-year-old about his actions when he stopped the car in Ilminster Avenue and four teenagers jumped out.
Snook said he started trying to do a three point turn and intended to return home on his own. “As far as you’re concerned were they going to get back into your car?” Mr Vaitilingam asked, and Snook agreed. Under questioning, Snook said he didn’t see any violence, didn’t see any weapons. Mr Vaitilingam said: “It’s obvious now from looking at that CCTV that at least one of the boys had a weapon in his hand.” Snook replied: “I can only comment on what I saw, I was looking in my rear view mirror.”
At this point the judge intervened again, asking Snook: “What did you think they were doing?” Snook replied: “I thought they were going to the house they were going to.”
The court was shown the CCTV clip that showed the attack on Mason and the teenagers running back to jump back into Snook’s car. The car, driven by Snook, passes Mason lying on the pavement.
Snook tells the court it was the ‘first time I’d seen him (Mason)’. “What did you think?” asked Mr Vaitilingam, defending. “I thought they’d got in a fight or something, I was just panicking, I didn’t want to be involved in it. I didn’t think it was serious. I didn’t think it had cost two people their lives.”
Snook is then asked what happened in the car as he drove away with all four teenagers back in his vehicle. “I wasn’t paying attention to what was being said,” he said, saying he ‘couldn’t honestly remember’ what the teens were talking about. “I can’t honestly remember. I was just panicking at the time. Because I’d been dragged into something I shouldn’t have been involved in.
“I may have said something like ‘what the hell’s going on?’ ‘What’s happened?’ But the rest of the journey was silent,” he tells the court.
Mr Vaitilingam led Snook through CCTV back at the house in Hartcliffe where the journey started from, showing some of the teens getting out with long swords and machetes. He said he stood in the gateway talking to people there. Asked what he thought at the time, he replied: “I just thought it was something stupid between Hartcliffe and Knowle that I’d been dragged into. I didn’t realise anything so serious had occurred.”
Snook told the court he then went home and took his dog for a walk, and when he was out he saw the police response to what had just happened. “I saw armed police and saw the helicopter, it was the first time I realised something serious might have happened, so I turned round and went home.”
The police were waiting for him and arrested him. They later found a pair of bloodstained jogging bottoms in the rear footwell of his car, which had been left by the 17-year-old defendant. Snook said he was ‘unaware’ they were there.
Antony Snook, 45, and 18-year-old Riley Tolliver are charged with two counts of murder, along with three teenagers aged 17, 16 and 15, who can’t be named for legal reasons.
All five have pleaded ‘not guilty’ to both murders, apart from the 15-year-old, who has pleaded guilty to the murder of Mason Rist, and the 17-year-old, who has admitted the manslaughter of Max Dixon, but denies murder.