Court Jury retires in trial of five accused of helping teens’ killers evade the police

THE jury in the trial of five people accused of helping some of the murderers of south Bristol teenagers Max Dixon and Mason Rist evade the police in the aftermath of the attack has retired to consider its verdicts.

- Tristan CORK

Best friends Mason Rist and Max Dixon were killed in January last year

And the jury was told a young couple accused of letting two of the young killers stay overnight in their home and then driving them to Weston-super-Mare to get out of Bristol denied they knew what the two teens had done, and also denied giving them a lift away from the city.

The judge in the trial, which has so far lasted for three weeks, completed his summing up yesterday afternoon by leading the jury through the prosecution’s and defence’s cases in relation to Dominic Smith and Ellie-May Maddocks, both 26, and from Westbury-on-Trym.

The couple are accused of two counts of assisting an offender, and have been in the dock alongside Marcus Williams, from Hartcliffe, and Kristian Hooper, a 48-year-old from Weston-super-Mare, who are both charged with one count of assisting an offender.

As the trial began back in November, a fifth person accused - Jillian Tolliver, 51, from Hartcliffe - was deemed by the judge as unfit to stand trial. The jury will instead make a finding in respect of her case, rather than a verdict.

Jillian Tolliver and Kristian Hooper are the parents of Riley Tolliver, one of four teenagers convicted a year ago of the double murder of Max Dixon, 16, and Mason Rist, 15. The killings, which happened in Knowle West on the last Saturday of January 2024, shocked the nation and last December saw convictions and life sentences for the four teenagers involved and for Antony Snook, a 46-year-old who drove the young killers into Knowle West and away again after the attack.

Tolliver, Hooper and Williams are accused of helping Riley Tolliver, who was 17 at the time, to avoid the police investigation into the double murders by arranging for him to go to stay with his grandmother in Weston-super-Mare. All three deny the charge.