The mother of murdered teenager Max Dixon has called for better education in schools around the laws of joint enterprise after five people were jailed for life for his murder, even though only one of them stabbed him.
Leanne Ekland said she hoped the sentences handed to four teenagers last week, and the hefty sentence already given to the man who drove the gang who killed her son, would act as a deterrent to teenagers who hang around in groups and carry knives.
Speaking after five people were convicted of the murder of 16-year-old Max and his best friend Mason Rist, 15, but before the four teenagers involved were sentenced for the crime that shocked the nation back in January, Leanne said she wanted to see more education in schools about the consequences of carrying knives, and being involved in gangs and groups where knives are carried.
She said the school where she worked and both Max and Mason attended – Oasis John Williams in Hengrove – has already begun to teach the young people there about the law, showing media reports of the case that saw two of their classmates murdered on the street outside their homes back in January 2024.
The murders in Knowle West added two new names to a tragic roll call of young people killed in Bristol’s wave of knife crime in the past couple of years – Dontae Davis, Mikey Roynon, Eddie King Muthemba Kinuthia – and a couple of weeks later, Darrian Williams. The murders of Max and Mason, and the subsequent court case, shocked the nation in part because it was two best friends killed for no reason outside their homes, but also because of the joint enterprise nature of the subsequent court case, that saw five people convicted of murder, when only two inflicted fatal injuries.
For example, 18-year-old Riley Tolliver joined in the attack with a baseball bat, struck Mason a couple of times, but did not have a knife and did not stab anyone. He played a key role in the attack – he was the first to confront Max and Mason as they walked away from Mason’s front gate and chased them with the other three defendants. He was jailed for life with a minimum term to serve of 23 years before he can apply for parole.
Another of the teens, a 16-year-old who cannot be named for legal reasons, took a long knife and chased the boys but did not stab either of them. Nevertheless, the role he played in the attack meant he was convicted of two counts of murder and jailed for life to serve a minimum term of at least 18 years and 44 days.
It is a lesson Leanne said should be taught everywhere, across the country – that even if you don’t think you would get involved in violence, simply being part of a group carrying out violence can make you as responsible.
“Education is the main thing,” she said. “In schools, they should be taught about joint enterprise. They should have it explained to them, the aftermath of using a knife and the ripples it causes. It starts at home. There’s a lot of parents out there who know what their children are up to, who know what they are carrying. I think it starts at home, before we go anywhere else.
“I popped in (to the school) last week and they’ve been doing assemblies and showing them clips of the news and explaining to them the effects it has had on families. Not just our families, but even the defendants’ families. It’s a ripple effect everywhere. They are trying to let the kids know where they can go if they know where they can go if they know of someone who is carrying a knife,” she added.
“I think it’s important that everyone knows who they are. And it’s important to know that you might not attack someone, but if you’re in that group, that you can be done for murder. Only one person attacked my son, but five have been found guilty of his murder,” she added.
Leanne’s son Max was directly murdered by Kodi Wescott, who was 16 at the time – the same age as Max – but turned 17 before he was put on trial for murder. He stabbed Max in a random and quick attack in Ilminster Avenue in Knowle West on the last Saturday of January. He admitted causing the fatal stab wound, acknowledged manslaughter, but denied he meant to kill Max. The prosecution said the size of the huge zombie knife he used meant he must have meant to kill Max or cause him serious harm and the jury agreed.
All four of the teenagers who chased Max and Mason down the street and stabbed them – as well as the man who drove them to and from Hartcliffe to Knowle West that night – were found guilty, including the three who didn’t inflict any stab wounds. The jury agreed that they had encouraged and supported the two who did.
Leanne made herself sit through every day of the month-long trial, which included repeated viewing of the CCTV videos shot from a range of different cameras on Ilminster Avenue, including the one on the front of Mason’s house, which ultimately captured the shocking moments he was stabbed by a 14-year-old, beaten with a baseball bat by Riley Tolliver, who was 17 at the time but is now 18, and then stabbed again by the same teenager who seconds earlier had stabbed Max.
“I needed to see everything,” she said. “As much as everyone was telling me not to look at this, not to listen to that, for me I needed to. I understand why other people didn’t want to, because it’s horrific. Nobody should have to listen to and see what we’ve had to see. But I needed to. It helps me process things, instead of your mind playing games and tricks on you. So I’ve seen everything, I’ve heard everything. Now hopefully I can process that,” she added.
The guilty verdicts – for all five for both murders – brought a sense of relief for Leanne and the rest of the two families. The life sentence with a minimum term of at least 38 years for Antony Snook, the adult who drove the car that took the teenagers into Knowle West, was ‘the best outcome that I could have asked for’. “It’s allowed me to breathe a little bit more. If the others get a good sentence as well, I’m hoping it’s a deterrent to other people,” she said. “It’s some sort of justice, but it’s never going to bring closure to us, and comfort.”
In the ten months between the shocking murders and the moment the five were brought to trial, Leanne said she has tried not to think about them. At all. “It takes away from my love of Max. I try not to focus on them because I don’t want to be angry,” she said. “So I always put Max in front of everything, so I concentrate more on Max than I do on them.
“I think they’ve got to live with what they’ve done for the rest of their lives and I hope one day, they will understand what they’ve done wrong and have a little bit of remorse – at the moment I don’t think they do. I don’t think they understand the impact of what they’ve done, so I hope that one day they understand what they’ve done.
“They’ve taken my heart. And I know I love my girls, deeply, but they’ve also took my son, and I now need to repair my life, but I can’t. Everyone says it will get better, but I don’t think it will, because he was a massive part of our family, and I don’t want to move on.
“He was my life, my kids are my life, that’s all I ever wanted to be was a mum, and he completed our family. He was the glue of our family, and to think that I’ve got to move on without him is hard. They need to understand that they destroyed me, and they don’t know me, and they didn’t know Max, they don’t know my girls, and I think that’s the sad thing that they’ve got to live with,” she added.