The families of Max Dixon and Mason Rist fought back the tears as they bravely confronted the man convicted of their double murder, and told him and the court exactly how their lives had been left broken and traumatised by their deaths.
Antony Snook was jailed for life for his part in the double murder of the two best friends in Bristol back in January. The 45-year-old from Hartcliffe used his own car to drive four teenagers ‘armed to the teeth’ to Knowle West, and sped off 33 seconds later having picked them up after they fatally stabbed Max and Mason.
In highly-charged emotional scenes at his sentencing hearing, the families of the two teenagers were able to read out personal impact statements, directly addressing the judge in the case, Mrs Justice May, and Antony Snook himself.
Snook remained visibly impassive as the mothers and sisters of the two boys he helped to murder explained in traumatic detail just how the boys’ deaths had left them feeling, and the ongoing impact it has had on their families.
The statements were written by Nikki Knight, Mason’s mum, Leanne Ekland, Max’s mum, and two of the boys’ big sisters – Chloe Rist, Mason’s sister, and Kayleigh Dixon, one of Max’s big sisters. The statements were written as impact statements for both of what will now be two separate sentencing hearings.
Snook was jailed for life with a minimum term of 38 years on Tuesday, November 19, and the statements will again apply to the sentencing of the four teenagers who killed Max and Mason, which is to take place in December.
Mason’s mum Nikki told the court how his murder – right outside their home – had badly affected her. “I feel frightened living in my own home since Mason was taken. I feel paranoid, hearing noises all the time,” she said. “I’m always looking at the door, checking the locks and trying to do all I can to feel safe again. I do these things while still expecting Mason to walk through the door, and come home to me. The lights have to be left on all the time.
“Over the last weeks and months, I haven’t slept at all. I don’t really know what’s going on in my head and how I am coping, I go over the same things, over and over trying to make sense of how we are here today,” she added.
“To put into words how I feel is impossible. I have to go out and be with people all the time. I can’t be on my own. If I am on my own time just stands still, I count down the time until I can go to bed. Sometimes I forget to eat, going out seems pointless,” she added.
Max’s mum Leanne Ekland said her life has been on hold since the moment she was woken up by Max’s friends telling her he had been stabbed. She rushed from her home to Ilminster Avenue and got there in time to be with Max.
“Max was my only son; he was also the youngest of four,” she said. “The death of my son has impacted my life in such a way that it will never be the same. When I got there, I can just remember screaming let me see my son and people around me, stopping me, I can remember finally sitting on the ground with Max’s head between my legs, telling him I was there and to open his eyes, I remember him looking at me and his eyes closing, he said he just wanted to sleep. It was so frantic as the paramedics were working on him, cutting away at his clothes, he was so pale,” she added.
She told the court of the moment at hospital she and her family were told Max could not be saved. “I screamed and ran out the room and fell to the floor,” she said. “I knew then my life had changed, my heart was ripped out and the pain was unbearable, I have never felt pain like it and that pain I still feel today.
“When we were allowed to see Max, we walked in on them trying to save him and then stop and call his time of death. I couldn’t even say goodbye to him properly, I wasn’t allowed to touch him as he was a crime scene. All I wanted was to hold him and I wasn’t allowed. I then had to wait for a trial to happen, our families support network was restricted,” she added.
Leanne told the court she has been there every day to hear the proceedings. The families were seated in the public gallery above the court. “I have attended every day sometimes by myself,” she said. “On Max’s 17th birthday I had to listen to the pathology report, I had to listen and watch everything that happened that night, having to watch the CCTV and seeing Max, all I wanted to do was pull him out of the screen to have kept him safe.
“I have found it very hard to watch what those two boys had gone through, the fear of not knowing what was happening and why, two boys that had done nothing wrong, which has cost them their whole lives and two families having to live a life sentence,” she added.
“Max shouldn’t have been out that night, but he should have been safe to walk the streets that he has grown up on, he should have been able to go and get food with his mate Mason,” she said. “It was something they did often. My son didn’t deserve to die, Mason didn’t deserve to die, and our family doesn’t deserve to have to go through this, but due to your actions that night two families have been destroyed and there is no justification for that. There are no words to describe how much I love my son, no words to describe the pain of losing him. Our family unit has been destroyed,” she added.
Mason’s sister Chloe Rist fought back the tears as she told Antony Snook and the court how she rushed to get to the hospital when she heard he had been stabbed, but didn’t make it in time. She spoke at length of the trauma of Mason’s murder and how it has affected the entire family. “Not only did I lose my sweet innocent brother, I lost every person in my family. It’s affected every relationship, I have to watch everyone I love suffer,” she said.
“Every day I wake up I’m reminded it’s another day without my brother and another day I can’t be bothered to endure,” she said. “I look at the future as a waste of time now, we will no longer enjoy Christmas, holidays or any event that Mason won’t be part of. I feel guilty everyday for bringing my kids into a world where I can’t protect them. It’s bad enough having these feelings for another week let alone the rest of my life, it seems unbearable,” she said.
“Although I haven’t seen any remorse or regret, It must weigh heavy on you that you got the wrong boy, a mistake that has cost us so dearly,” she told Snook. “Mason wasn’t your enemy he would have never hurt you. I will never forgive you for what you have done – Mason could have been your friend but now he’s your victim,” she added.
Max’s sister Kayleigh said: “None of you even knew anything about my brother Max or Mason, about how special and important they were to their families, how they were both a pleasure to know and how kind they were and how much they will be desperately missed.
“I want you all to know that you killed me that day. You ripped out my heart and soul. It’s broken and unfixable. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I can’t function, all I see in my mind is my lifeless brother’s body, I can feel how cold his hands were and how stiff his body was. His soul disappearing from his brown eyes,” she added.
“I want you all to know how much you have traumatised not only me, but my mum, dad and two sisters. If I had known that the last conversation that I was going to have with my beautiful brother was the night before his painful, heart-wrenching death I would have never let that conversation end and I would never have let him out of my sight,” she added.
“I had so much more to learn and watch from Max as he grew up, to teach him, to guide him through life as a big sister, to always be there to love and support him. He had so much to learn and know about me and yet you have robbed me of a lifetime of love and memories by your malicious actions.
“Life is short, but not this short! Max and Mason should have been safe, our streets should be safe and now I will never feel safe again. I feel I have to look over my shoulder constantly because you just never know what might happen and it is you all that have done this to me,” she added.