The man who drove the car involved in the attack which killed Max Dixon and Mason Rist in Knowle West told police he saw a boy lying next to the road and ‘panicked and bolted’ seconds after the attack.
In interviews with police in the hours and days after the fatal attack, Antony Snook admitted he drove his car filled with teenagers from Hartcliffe to Knowle West, but claimed he thought he was driving them ‘to a safe house to go to bed’, and not on a revenge attack.
The 45-year-old claimed to police he didn’t know the boys who had got into his car, or even how many of them there were, and only realised something was wrong when the teenagers ‘got jumpy’ when they passed a police van.
Snook denies two counts of the murders of Max Dixon and Mason Rist – the prosecution case is that he is just as guilty as the teenagers who landed the fatal blows on the two boys from Knowle West, and his account of what he thought he was doing is ‘unbelievable and incredible’.
Much of the Friday morning of the trial in Court One at Bristol Crown Court has been taken up with reading out a transcript of the first two interviews conducted by police with Snook the day after the Saturday night attack, and on the Monday. It has been the first time since the trial began two weeks ago, that the words of one of the accused has been read to the jury.
The court was told Snook got home after the attack and was walking his dog when he saw the police helicopter was up, and realised what had happened had been serious. When he returned to his home, he found the police waiting for him.
The jury heard that police initially arrested him on suspicion of attempted murder within an hour of the attack, after tracing the car involved to him. He was put into the back of a police van and driven to Keynsham while, on the way, the officers who had arrested him were told on their radios that Mason Rist, 15, had died in hospital.
They pulled over and opened the back doors to inform Snook and rearrest him on suspicion of murder. The court was told he ‘exhaled deeply and said ‘sh**’. News came through minutes later that Max Dixon had also died in hospital, and Snook was rearrested on suspicion of his murder when he arrived at Keynsham police custody centre.
In interview, Snook said he believed he was taking a group of teenagers to a ‘safe house’ after a house in Hartcliffe had been attacked earlier that evening. The court heard last week and this week how windows had been smashed and a woman at the house injured after three unknown youths wearing balaclavas had thrown bricks at it.
He told police he had heard those responsible for that attack were ‘a load of Knowle Westers’. The court has already been told Max Dixon and Mason Rist had ‘nothing whatsoever’ to do with that earlier attack.
The court heard Snook told police in interview that he claimed he didn’t know the young people who got into his car, although he later did admit to knowing one of them, and didn’t even know how many passengers he had – telling police it was ‘two or three’. He said he would not tell police any names because he ‘would get driven out of Hartcliffe’.
He told police he followed directions from the young people in the back seat that took him into Knowle West, and began to suspect something was not right when the young people ‘got jumpy’ when they passed a police van parked on a street corner near the Newquay Road shops in Knowle West.
They turned into Ilminster Avenue and the ‘kids in the car started shouting ‘turn around’ and then ‘stop’’ Snook told police.
“I was getting agitated because I wanted to know where the hell we were going,” he told police. “When they saw the police van up by the shops, I knew something was up then. Unfortunately the kids were screaming in the car at me ‘stop’ – I didn’t know they was going to jump out. I didn’t know there was any weapons in the car. I feel abused to put me in that situation, those kids, whoever they are. Families are broken up,” he said.
The jury in the double murder trial have already watched in detail CCTV images from homes along Ilminster Avenue, which showed Snook’s car passing Max and Mason as they walked south east from Mason’s home towards the Newquay Road shops. The car passes them from behind, is turned around, and then four teenagers – the four charged with double murder – jump out and chase after the two boys.
Questioned more closely about what happened when he stopped the car in Ilminster Avenue that night, Snook told police: “I’ve got all the kids shouting ‘stop stop’. They got out of the car like f-ing rockets. I already had to spin the car round. I was going to go home and leave them there. I didn’t know anyone was dead,” he said.
“They just jumped out the car. I didn’t have any pre-warning. Then I just panicked. I turned the car around and by the time I done a three point turn they were back in the car. I didn’t see anything of what happened,” he told police. Later in the interviews, he said: “They shouted ‘turn round’ so I turned round. They jumped out and that’s when I saw people running,” he added.
Snook claimed to police he had no idea any of the passengers in his car had any weapons.
“I didn’t see any weapons before, after, during, I never seen no one get stabbed. I didn’t see any of that commotion,” he said in interview.
As the interviews progressed, he did say he remembered one ‘kid’ lying on the road. The jury has already seen this moment on CCTV, which shows Mason Rist, 15, lying on the pavement opposite his house, after being stabbed twice. The car driven by Snook slows as it passes him, seconds after all four teenagers have got back into the car.
“I seen one kid laid on the floor,” Snook told police in interview. “As we were pulling away. That kid was to the right of me. One chap was there. I don’t know where the other guy was, I’ve no idea. I don’t know,” he added.
Police asked him what he did when he saw a teenager lying on the ground: “So you’ve seen him lying on the floor and what have you done then?” asked the interviewing police officer DC Richard Kitchener.
“Panicked, just bolted,” Snook replied. “They (the teenagers had got back into the car) were still hanging on to the doors at the time. (I) just panicked. I didn’t see anything that happened. I didn’t know. As I reversed back I’ve then seen this kiddie,” he added.
Snook is charged with the murders of both Max Dixon and Mason Rist. He has pleaded ‘not guilty’. Riley Tolliver, 18, is also charged with both murders, and has also pleaded ‘not guilty’, as has a 16-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
A 17-year-old who cannot be named has denied both murder charges too, but admitted the manslaughter of Max Dixon, while a 15-year-old who cannot be named has pleaded guilty to the murder of Mason Rist, but ‘not guilty’ to the murder of Max Dixon.
The case continues.