The 21-year-old killer fled the country the morning after delivering the fatal stab to the chest
Thomas Dures has been sentenced for the murder of Matthew Daulby during a street brawl two years ago. The 21-year-old killer fled the country hours after he stabbed his teenage victim to death during a street brawl in Ormskirk.
Dures was convicted of murder and wounding with intent last week following a trial at Preston Crown Court. Jurors previously heard that Matthew, from Lydiate, travelled to the Ormskirk area with friends on the evening of July 29 2023 after receiving a message in a group chat, named “M.R.S”, which stated that one of their number, who was alone and on crutches, had been punched three times by Dures.
This led to a confrontation near Alpine Bar on Railway Road, with the defendant having been present at the premises with his associate Henry Houghton earlier in the evening.
The latter would strike Matthew over the head with a makeshift weapon, consisting of a rock stuffed into a sports sock, during the ensuing melee. The 19-year-old suffered damage to his skull and frontal lobe during the incident, although this injury was not fatal of itself.
However, Dures, of Whalley Drive in Aughton, West Lancashire, then delivered the deadly blow to the chest with a knife which he had been carrying all night, having alleged that he was minding the weapon on behalf of Houghton. Matthew managed to leave the scene of the fight but collapsed on nearby Moorgate, later being pronounced dead at Aintree Hospital in the early hours of July 30.
Dures also stabbed two other men during the altercation before fleeing. He discarded his jacket in a nearby park in the aftermath and handed his man bag to a friend.
Having washed his face in the Railway pub and disposed of the knife in an alleyway, he then took a taxi home before travelling to a friend’s home at around 3am. It was there that he apparently first learned that the brawl had resulted in serious injuries, having told jurors from the witness box: “I didn’t believe it. I didn’t think anyone was seriously injured, because I clearly seen everyone was able to run away.”
Following posts on Facebook which reported Matthew’s death, he was collected from the Plough Inn pub by an unknown driver and taken to Kent. He thereafter travelled via the Channel Tunnel to Austria, took a coach to southern Italy and boarded a ferry to Greece.
Asked why he had absconded to Europe, Dures said in his evidence: “I was scared of going to prison. There was a £10,000 bounty on my head. I was scared to come back.”
Dures remained in Athens until December last year, when he handed himself in at a police station before being extradited back to the UK. In the intervening period, Houghton, of Barrison Green in Scarisbrick, was handed a life sentence imprisonment with a minimum term of 20 years behind bars for Matthew’s murder.
When the jury returned a guilty verdict, shouting erupted from the public gallery. An eyewitness told the ECHO that two women who had attended court in support of Dures had to be removed from the building in the aftermath of the verdict while screaming and shouting.
They were reported to have made comments including “they’re all corrupt, the whole place is corrupt, everybody is corrupt”. One was meanwhile heard to say “may God have mercy on them”.
Today, July 28, the judge handed down a sentence of life imprisonment with a minimum term of 23.
