Share:

Media organisations successfully apply to lift reporting restrictions in a double youth murder

ITN, BBC, Sky and ITV Regional News, represented by Clare Wisson, successfully applied to lift a reporting restriction to name a teenager convicted of killing 15 year old best friends Max Dixon and Mason Rist in a case of mistaken identity. 

Kodi Westcott (16 yrs at the time of the murders, now 17 yrs) – along with adult Anthony Snook (45 yrs), Riley Tolliver (now 18 yrs) and two boys who cannot be named (now 15 and 16 yrs) – was convicted of the double murders on 15 November 2024 following a six week trial. Kodi’s older brother Bailey Westcott, together with Jamie Ogbourne, was convicted of assisting an offender having conducted a ‘clear up operation’ following the fatal attack. 

The facts of the murders are shocking: a revenge attack on children who were tragically in the wrong place at the wrong time, and who had nothing to do with gang violence. The perpetrators had ‘tooled up’ with fearsome weapons: machete and ‘killer zombie’ blades that are illegal to sell in this country. The victims were fatally stabbed on a residential street only seconds outside the front door to Mason’s home.

The media organisations argued there was a strong public interest in naming Kodi in order to inform public debate about knife crime and the effects of postcode-driven violence (in the Bristol neighbourhoods of Hartcliffe vs Knowle in this case). In making the excepting direction permitting the naming of Kodi, Mrs Justice May held that: 

“in terms of the public interest in reporting, Kodi’s was a central role in these offences: it was his house in Hartcliffe which was attacked and he was there alone with his mother at the time.  It was Kodi’s brother Bailey who made calls and came over before the group left with Snook in the car, and Bailey who organised cleaning them up by burning Kodi’s and [redacted]’s clothes on their return. Finally Kodi was a principal offender in both murders, having inflicted the single fatal wound to Max and (as I am sure the evidence demonstrated) one of the two fatal wounds to Mason.”

The reporting restriction was lifted at the sentencing hearing on 19 December 2024. Select press reporting on the sentencing remarks and case can be found at the links below: 

The media organisations’ instructions were led by Demelza Hassani at ITN (production company for Channel 4 News, ITV News and Channel 5 News). Press Association separately applied to lift the reporting restrictions.