Inside Britain’s secret gang warfare: How Bristol is combating knife crime ‘plague’ as 5 teenage boys die in mindless tit for tat bloodshed

For Shanine Wright, the agony of watching her little brother’s horrifying death on screen was too much to bear. 

Darrian Williams, 16, was murdered in a senseless stabbing while hanging out with friends in Rawnsley Park, in the Easton suburb of Bristol on February 14 last year. 

Two boys in balaclavas rode up on bikes and asked if he was a member of the 1-6 gang before plunging a knife into his back. 

But Darrian had no affiliation with any of the local gangs and was only guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

While the jury at his murder trial watched the brutal violence erupt on the court television sets, Ms Wright, understandably, broke out in uncontrollable sobs and even threw up from trauma. 

With a deep sadness in her eyes and a level of desperation in her voice, she told MailOnline: ‘Our trial was literally kids in the docks. They don’t know what’s going on. 

‘These are children, even down to the defendants, they are children, and that’s really hard to process. How can another child commit something so senseless and so violent?’ 

Tragically, cases like Darrian’s are not isolated in Bristol where teenagers, families and the police find themselves embroiled in a bloodthirsty postcode war involving two local gangs. 

The ‘2s’ come from St Pauls and St Judes districts while the ‘1-6’ gang hail from Fishponds a few miles away. 

It started with a childish game of tit-for-tat, members would spray paint their postcode onto buildings and then a rival gang would spray over it with their own.

But the tribal turf war turned to bloodshed when gangs began arming themselves with knives and machetes instead of spray cans.

Soon police and emergency services rolled out ‘bleed kits’ across the city so stabbing victims could survive long enough for paramedics to arrive.

But best friends Max Dixon, 16, and Mason Rist, 15, didn’t get a second chance. They were stabbed to death with machetes yards from Mason’s front door in a case of mistaken identity.

Max and Mason were heading out to get pizza on January 27, last year when they were attacked by youths armed with some of the ‘most horrific’ weapons local police had seen.

Their murder trial heard the boys had been innocently caught up in a long-standing rivalry between Knowle West and Hartcliffe, both districts of Bristol, and there had previously been incidents involving people from ‘both postcodes’.

Two machetes, 20 inches and 19 inches, were shown to Bristol Crown Court where the four young killers were jailed for life.

One, just 16, had stabbed a teenager with a 10-inch Rambo knife outside a Bristol retail park the day before he took part in the murders of Max and Mason.

During the murder trial the teenage killers were seen sharing a joke and fist bumping each other in the dock and since being behind bars one of the gang has even boasted on social media about the fatal stabbings.

Riley Tolliver, 18, Kodishai Wescott, 17, and two teenage boys aged 15 and 16 were also jailed after being found guilty of murder.

Tolliver and Wescott were caged for life, while the 15-year-old was handed 15 years and 229 days in prison and the 16-year-old received an 18 year and 44 day jail term.

Westcott, 17, later made vile references to his victims being in a coffin and also to ’33 seconds’ – the duration of the frenzied attack on Max and Mason.

Max’s heartbroken mother Leanne Ekland broke down in tears as she was being interviewed by Susanna Reid on Good Morning Britain last week.

Reacting to the video, Ms Ekland said: ‘It’s an insult to my son, they were two really lovely boys.

They were not wrapped up in any gang wars or postcode wars, they went out for a pizza and didn’t come home.’

Sadly Darrian, Max and Mason are not the only teenagers to have their lives tragically cut short on the streets of Bristol.

Eddie King Muthemba Kinuthia, 19, from the St Pauls area of the city, was stabbed repeatedly during a vicious attack and died in hospital from his wounds. 

A vigil was held for him near his home where he was described as a ‘a happy, caring and kind young lad’.

Lorna Da’Angel, a family friend, added: ‘The whole community loved him.

‘What happened to him should not have happened – I wish we could see him again.’

Three men were charged with Mr Kinuthia’s murder in January this year after an 18-month investigation.

Aspiring drill rapper Mikey Roynon was another victim of the region’s knife crisis.

The 16-year-old, from Bristol was stabbed to death by three teenagers with a zombie knife during a row at a house party in Bath in June 2023.

Mikey, who had just finished his GCSEs, died at the scene at around 11pm.

A teenager, who was also at the party and gave evidence during the trial, said Mikey told him he thought he was going to die after being stabbed.

Shane Cunningham, 16, was jailed for a minimum of 16 years for Mikey’s murder while Cartel Bushnell and Leo Knight, also 16, received sentences of nine years and nine-and-a-half years’ youth detention. 

Mikey’s father, Michael Roynon, said in a victim impact statement: ‘I feel so tortured at the loss of my boy…I feel like I have a life sentence.’

During the sentencing Mr Justice Saini told the court: ‘Bristol and its surrounding areas are in the middle of a plague of knife crime. That plague has continued since this trial concluded.

‘The lives of boys who carry knives continue to be taken by those who also carry knives.’

Knife crime is such a concern in Bristol –  a city associated with bohemian cafes, quaint streets and a thriving arts scene –  that children are now being taught how to deal with stab wounds at school.

Teachers have also been offered bleed kits which contain items such as pads and bandages to give out in an attack before paramedics arrive.

More than 1,000 zombie-style knives were handed over to Avon and Somerset Police in an amnesty after the Government brought in a ban.

But Avon and Somerset Police feature in the national top five for recorded knife crimes and accounted for nearly half (48.8 per cent) of the South West’s total (3,452), according to the most recent data from the Office of National Statistics.

In the year up to September 2024, the force were faced with 1,683 ‘serious offences involving a knife’.

Just a week before Max and Mason were murdered, a teenager was stabbed by a gang in playing fields at Little Stoke, Bristol.

The next day a 16-year-old boy was stabbed at McDonald’s in The Horsefair, Bristol, and left in a critical condition. A man was later charged with attempted murder.

In March last year Aliki Mamwa, 30 was knifed to death in Ashley Road, St Paul’s. A 43-year-old man was jailed for his manslaughter. 

In May, a man in his forties, was stabbed outside McDonald’s in Broadmead, Bristol. His attacker was jailed for six years.

Later in May two 17-year-old boys were stabbed in the same street in Bristol in two separate incidents.

In June, a 13-year-old boy was stabbed in Cabot Circus. Two teenage boys were later arrested.

Bristolian’s have been left asking why their young men are willing to kill for a postcode and why the city is struggling to stop it.

Those who have have first hand experience told MailOnline the lack of youth provisions forces youngsters to cling to postcodes for a sense of belonging.

And the failure to collaborate amongst organisations, charities and the police means opportunities to intervene early are missed.

Ms Wright told MailOnline she believes her brother was a victim of a ‘broken connection’ between these groups and in order to stop the loss of more lives they must start working together.

After a service held for the families united in their grief of losing a loved one to knife crime at The Lord Mayor’s Chapel on Tuesday, she said: ‘I think there could have been so much more preventative work around my brother’s death. 

‘As we know, there were incidents that took place prior. I think there was some type of broken connection and unfortunately Darrian was a victim of that.’

The court was told how weeks before the incident, he and a friend were approached by another group in balaclavas asking him if he was a member of the 1-6 gang.

And one of the defendants told the court he started carrying a knife six days before Darrian was killed after a youth, unrelated to the case, had been spotted carrying a machete in a local Mcdonald’s.

‘I think we’ve got too many little pockets of everyone trying to do stuff when they should actually come together. I am really pushing for more preventative work and that’s something I will be taking to the Knife Crime Coalition,’ Ms Wright said.

In September 2024, the government launched the Knife Crime Coalition to ‘tackle knife crime and stop young people being dragged into violent gangs’. 

Ms Wright believes if her brother’s killers were given help and support at the first sign of them heading down the wrong path then perhaps Darrian would still be alive today.

Since losing her little brother, she now finds it ‘really hard’ to stabilise her emotions, avoids leaving her house and will not be letting her children go out on their own until she sees change.

‘I haven’t gone food shopping since it happened. I get it delivered instead. I used to party all the time and go out with my friends and now I just don’t feel safe to do that,’ she said.

In fact, Ms Wright said she has never truly felt safe in her city as she is no stranger to the impact of knife crime.

She explained another one of her brothers has been stabbed before and is currently being charged with possession of a bladed article in a public place. 

He also almost died when he sustained a self-inflicted wound when carrying a knife which saw him undergo a 12-hour life saving surgery.

Giving a message to any young boys who are in a gang or thinking of joining one, she said: ‘The streets don’t love you. Your family does. Those people that you think you’re going to be looking for when it all goes wrong are not going to be there in the long term. 

‘Even if you are the victim or the defendant, it is still going to have a massive affect on your family. Whether you go to jail or you go to your grave, you’re going to lose your life and it never comes back.’

Meanwhile, the closure of 20 youth clubs across the city has left one battling the problem alone, even having to carefully schedule sessions to keeps some boys from different gangs away from each other.

Empire Fighting Chance in Easton is a boxing gym and ‘sport for development’ charity founded in 2006 to fight the impact of inequality on young people’s lives.

The coaches, who have all grown up in the city, use non-contact boxing and their relatability to keep young people off the streets and away from gangs.

Empire’s youth voice ambassador Serena Wiebe, 21, has been dubbed the ‘Hood Politician’ for her activism which led her to working with the Home Office on their new youth strategy that aims to deliver ‘better coordinated youth services and policy at a local, regional and national level’.

Losing a friend to knife crime and her older brother to suicide inspired Ms Wiebe to join Empire in an effort to make change.

Parents often come to her and cry out of fear that they will lose their child to the streets.

She said: ‘We have a young lad who lost his brother to knife crime and now comes to these sessions. 

‘Me and his mother are always having conversations about how we can prevent this from happening to her other son. 

‘It’s another paranoia for them. They don’t want this to pass on to the other kids. 

‘I think what we need to focus more on how we’re gonna stop the younger generation from going down the same path.’

Ms Wiebe explained many young men in Bristol carry knives because they feel they have to for protection and it’s so widespread that one secondary school has had to install metal detectors.

She also highlighted how women and girls are often forgotten in all the commotion, leaving mothers, sisters and girlfriends with unresolved trauma and a lack of support. 

The campaigner acknowledged the appeal of drill music amongst ‘easily led’ young people and how it could be contributing towards the issue.

‘I’m hearing 10-year-olds are listening to drill and if they hear these things in music and on social media, obviously it automatically becomes normal to them,’ she said.

Referencing the tracks released by Mason Rist and Max Dixon’s killer Jodi Westcott, she added: ‘I think the reason why he’s gloating about is not because he’s proud of what he’s done, but because he wants recognition from everyone else.

‘He wants the clout. He wants people to know he has killed someone. Killing someone has become trendy now. How we got to this point? I don’t know.’

Empire’s community outreach manager Courtney Young, 31, told MailOnline: ‘It’s very complicated. I think there’s a number of issues that go on. I think in terms of the Heartcliff, Norwest beef, there’s been issues, I think, around a couple of families that’s just escalated and it gets more and more people involved. 

‘I think drug dealing is definitely another reason why there’s trouble. It’s hard to put your finger on it but I think the demise of certain help in those areas, such as youth clubs, and young people having nowhere to go, contributes. 

‘That’s what we constantly hear at the gym, they have nowhere safe to be, so it’s just is a breeding ground for young people to get involved in violence.’

Both agreed that the territorial rivalries could be remedied by the police, charities and organisations coming together and creating more opportunities for teenagers from different areas to mix with each other.

Councillor Christine Townsend, chair of Bristol City Council’s Children and Young People Committee, said: ‘We are deeply committed to protecting Bristol’s families and vulnerable young people from the threat of harm.

‘We have invested in support services for young people and their families which focus on nurturing positive relationships and creating new opportunities.

‘As a city we are working together to achieve the outcome of reducing violence.

‘We take a public health approach to tackling serious violence, focusing on long-term solutions and preventative measures. We work with communities to develop enduring solutions to tackling youth violence.

‘Bristol’s Safer Options approach coordinates activity across multiple partners, including local community organisations, schools, colleges and the police. It puts a focus on prevention of harm and runs in parallel with Youth Justice Service’s prevention programmes that work with children at risk of entering the justice system.’

An independent child safeguarding practice review, commissioned by the Keeping Bristol Safe Partnership, is currently underway. The report will be published after it has been shared with the National Review Panel.

In January, Chief Inspector of Avon and Somerset Police Mike Vass told ITV the roots of the knife crime problem in the city were down to technology and social media, a lack of support available for young people, fear that more people are carrying knives and trust and confidence in the police.

He added that he although the force is pushing forward with increasing preventative measures, it is a ‘complex societal problem’ which Bristol can’t police its way out.

Echoing the sentiments of others, he said: ‘It’s about getting people to talk to each other and to work together, not just the police and authorities, but communities themselves.’

On Thursday, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced that ‘Ninja swords’ – a blade of between 36cm and 61cm, with one straight cutting edge and a tanto style or sharply-angled tip – will be banned by the summer.

There is already a penalty of up to four years in prison for carrying any weapon in public but from August 1, anyone caught in possession of a Ninja sword could face six months in prison – set to rise to two years under forthcoming legislation.