On the night of July 28, 2023, Matthew Daulby had not long finished dinner with his family when he left their home in Lydiate, telling his parents, Gary and Angela, he would not be long. He never returned.
The 19-year-old was one of 10 teenagers who travelled from St Gregory’s Social Club in Lydiate to Ormskirk after learning a friend had been subjected to a “cowardly attack while on crutches”. In the street brawl that followed, he was hit over the head with a rock tied in a sock by Henry Houghton before Thomas Dures plunged a knife into his chest. Matthew collapsed near Moorgate and was rushed to Aintree University Hospital, where he died at 1.25am on July 29.
Five people were stabbed in the brawl. CCTV shown to Preston Crown Court showed Dures approaching the group carrying a knife, with Houghton brandishing a sock containing a rock before the violence erupted.
Killers convicted
Three years on, both killers have been convicted. Houghton was jailed for 20 years for hitting Matthew over the head; his appeal was later rejected. Dures fled the UK and crossed Europe before handing himself in. He walked into a police station in Athens, Greece, on December 2, 2024, with his lawyer and no phone or passport. He was jailed for 23 years after a trial at Preston Crown Court last year. No one has been convicted in connection with helping him flee the country. During Dures' trial, several members of his family were told to leave the public gallery after outbursts; when the jury returned its guilty verdict, shouts of “they're all corrupt” and “may God have mercy on them” were heard.
This week, for the first time with no criminal proceedings hanging over them, Matthew’s parents spoke to the ECHO.
Gary said: “It’s very difficult, it’s really difficult. [Thomas Dures'] first thought was to run, not to be accountable for what he did, and what he did is so cruel and final, and he ran. We then had to wait for him to be found, to go through that same trial process again, and wait for that trial. Ultimately, it’s cowardly.”
Angela said: “Anyone who carries a knife is a coward. That’s all I’ve got to say about Thomas Dures.” She added: “There were no winners that night. Matthew was the ultimate loser, Matthew's friends ultimately saw their friend be killed, and Thomas Dures and Henry Houghton are now in jail. There are no winners, and, ultimately, Matthew and our family are the biggest losers.”
Anti-knife crime foundation
Gary, Angela and their eldest son Tom have set up the Matthew Daulby Foundation. They have created three videos for virtual reality headsets; one, viewed by the ECHO, puts the viewer in the middle of each stage of the night and is narrated by Tom. The foundation is also working with Lancashire Police, with officers helping to roll the videos out to schools later this year. Funds will be raised to supply VR headsets for the campaign.
Angela said: “Knife crime has no demographic. Anyone can carry a knife. It's really important that we educate children at the right age so they understand what choices can lead to, and how they can actually be catastrophic to what can happen to their lives, or their friends' lives. Getting them at the right age with the right technology, we believe, will really make a difference, because they can ultimately see how everything that happened that night led to something else, and ultimately led to Matthew being murdered. Before we even get to the place where somebody has already gone down the wrong road, we need to show children what can happen.”
Angela also reflected on conversations about knives: “It didn't even come into our heads, and it's never came into [Matthew and Tom's] heads to take a knife, either. Maybe we should have had that conversation [about knives], I don't know, but we just didn't have that conversation. It was never in our thought process and then we speak to Tom, and Tom says, 'I didn't know anyone was carrying a knife. Never.' They reacted to something that happened that wasn't very nice, you know, getting punched in the face three times when you're on crutches is not very nice. They made a decision to go to Ormskirk. That decision ultimately cost Matthew his life, but if they hadn't have been carrying a knife, he'd be here today. He'd be alive.”
The foundation’s website is expected to go live later this month, and Gary and Angela are due to appear on Channel 4’s Digital Detectives on August 6.
