Two men who assisted the teenagers who murdered Max Dixon and Mason Rist in South Bristol earlier this year have been jailed for their part in the crimes.
Jamie Ogbourne, 27, and Bailey Wescott, 23, both from Hartcliffe, pleaded guilty to two counts of assisting an offender, in relation to two of the four teenagers who were found guilty last month of the double murder in Knowle West in January.
Both were jailed for five years and three months – sentences that would have been seven years but were reduced because they pleaded guilty to their involvement at the earliest stage in the court proceedings earlier this year. The four teenagers who attacked and killed Max and Mason in Ilminster Avenue are due to be sentenced on Thursday this week.
Today at Bristol Crown Court, the judge in the case heard how Bailey Wescott started a fire in the back garden of a house in Hartcliffe within two minutes of two of the teenagers returning from the attack in Knowle West, and two minutes later was caught on the house’s own CCTV cameras burning items of clothing.
Prosecuting, Ray Tully KC said this clothing ‘would have in all likelihood had DNA and blood relating to Max and Mason’ on it. The sentencing hearing was also told that, on the following day after the attack on the evening of Saturday, January 27, a text message exchange between Wescott and one of the teenagers involved appeared to show what Mr Tully described as Wescott ‘coaching’ the youngster about what to say if arrested.
Text messages revealed he told the teen: “Don’t say you was there and then just go on like you don’t know what’s happening.” Mr Tully said: “It can’t be said that this message was sent at a time when he didn’t know of the deaths of two young boys in Ilminster Avenue.” The reply from the teenager, who has since been convicted of two murders: “I’ll just say I ain’t splashed no little kid,” to which Bailey replied ‘ok’.
The sentencing hearing also heard that Jamie Ogbourne, who is now 27 and from Hartcliffe, provided a safe house for two of the teenagers involved, for around 24 hours after the attack. Ogbourne provided the pair with a ‘burner’ phone, and one of the youngsters later said – in a covert recording while in custody months later – that Ogbourne provided the pair with cash and drugs, with the intention that they go on the run.
In that recording, the teenager – who can’t be named because of his age – talked about the assistance he and another teen received from Ogbourne. He said Ogbourne gave them ‘a grand’ – £1,000 in a cash – and ‘half an ounce of pure canny’ – cannabis – and a new phone. “It was his intention to go on the run,” said Mr Tully of the 16-year-old. “He said in that recording ‘we were provided with a phone that Jamie gave us to contact everyone we wanted’. This turned out to be a short period of days before they were arrested,” added Mr Tully.
The court was told Ogbourne said later he learned that the attack in Knowle West involved the fatal stabbing of Max and Mason from the report in the local press the following morning. When Ogbourne and Wescott were both arrested, they refused to answer questions from the police, but read prepared statements – the content of which focussed on their denials that they were directly involved in the murders themselves.
In mitigation, Kannan Silva, counsel for Wescott, said the 23-year-old was a father-of-one himself, who ‘accepts he would have had some awareness of the intention to cause harm, in the lead up to the attack’, but would not have had knowledge that it would have been so serious.
In conversations with probation to compile a pre-sentence report, Mr Silva said: “Mr Wescott was visibility emotional, suitably self-critical and genuinely remorseful and regretful,” adding that Wescott ‘accepts he would have had some awareness of the intention to cause harm, in the lead up to the attack’, but would not have had knowledge that it would have been so serious. John Stokes, counsel for Ogbourne, said his client ‘wishes to express significant remorse for his involvement’.
The court was told Wescott had a list of three unrelated convictions on his criminal record – he was convicted of possession of crack cocaine, diamorphine and heroin with intent to supply in 2018 when he was just 17. Ogbourne had nine separate sentences and a list of 41 previous convictions ranging from drugs offences, assaults and non-compliance with previous court orders. The court was told the most serious was an aggravated dangerous driving offence in 2019 which caused controversy at the time because he was given a suspended sentence and wasn’t sent to prison. In that case, the judge took the unusual step of offering Ogbourne a deal – he deferred sentencing for three months and if he ‘stayed out of trouble’ in that time, the jail sentence would be suspended – which it was.
Sentencing the pair today, the judge in the double murder case, Mrs Justice May, told them that, with good behaviour they could be released halfway through, and their time on remand awaiting sentencing will also be taken off their sentences. With a starting point of seven years, the pair’s sentences were reduced to five years and three months because of the credit given to them for their early plea, and another ten months off for the time they’ve already been in custody. With a release halfway through their sentence, it means they could be free again in the late summer of 2026.
Five people have been found guilty of the murders of Max Dixon, 16 and Mason Rist, 15, after a month-long trial that ended last month. A jury decided all five were guilty of murder under joint enterprise laws – including four teenagers who chased and stabbed Max and Mason on Ilminster Avenue, and Antony Snook, who drove the car to and from Knowle West.
The 45-year-old Snook has already been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 38 years before he can apply for parole. The four teenagers – Riley Tolliver, 18, and three others who can’t at this stage be named because they are under 18 – will be sentenced on Thursday.