A 16-year-old boy who was part of a group of armed teenagers who murdered two best friends was born into ‘appalling division and rivalry’ in Bristol.
The defendant, who cannot be identified due to his age, is one of four teenagers due to be sentenced today at Bristol Crown Court for the murders of Max Dixon, 16, and Mason Rist, 15.
Anna Vigars KC, representing the youth, told Mrs Justice May that her client’s IQ is on the second percentile and he has clinical indicators for mental health disorders.
She said: “As well as what was going on within his home, he has faced community tensions from before an age of knowing better. Rivalries between areas of Bristol which he was born into. He was simply, by virtue of where he was born, an inheritor of some appalling division and rivalry between our city.”
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Mrs Vigars described how there was ‘adrenaline running high and fear running high’ after a property in Hartcliffe was attacked on the evening of January 27. “Somebody with the extremely low functioning that he had is profoundly ill-equipped to form a rational response to that fear and adrenaline from others,” she added.
She told the court that her client had been carrying a ‘fearsome weapon’ when the group fatally attacked Max and Mason on Ilminster Avenue in Knowle West shortly after 11pm that day but he did not stab either of them.
You can follow updates from the sentencing hearing for all four teenagers convicted of the double murder of Max and Mason here.