Henry Houghton took his case to the Court of Appeal where he argued he shouldn’t have been convicted of murder
Henry Houghton took his case to the Court of Appeal where he argued he shouldn’t have been convicted of murder
A killer who helped in the murder of a teenager during a vicious street brawl attempted to appeal his conviction and sentence while his friend awaited trial for the same killing, the ECHO can reveal. Henry Houghton struck Matthew Daulby in the head with a rock tied up in a sock shortly before Matthew was fatally stabbed by Houghton’s friend Thomas Dures.
Houghton attempted to have his murder conviction overturned when he appeared in the Court of Appeal on May 7 last year, two months before Thomas Dures appeared in Preston Crown Court on trial for stabbing 19-year-old Matthew in the chest.
Houghton had been out with Thomas Dures when they assaulted Matthew Daulby’s friend Callaghan Worden, who had been out with his girlfriend on the night of July 28, 2023. That night, Matthew had joined his friends at a social club near his home in Lydiate when they received messages from Callaghan about the attack.
Dures had spotted him and confronted him after clashing with Callaghan and Matthew’s friend James ‘Evo’ Evans. Following the message into the friends’ WhatsApp group shortly after 11pm that night, Evans rushed back from Liverpool, where he had been out for a meal, dropping off his passenger and heading to Gregory’s Social Club in Maghull to meet up.
While he drove back to where the group had convened, a flurry of messages filled the group chat. Meanwhile, Callaghan Worden and Elliot Hay relayed messages to the group about the whereabouts of Dures and Houghton.
Hay said: “In the Alpine [a bar in Ormskirk]. They’re here. Christmas has come early.”
From the social club, the 10 teens headed to Ormskirk in two cars, with CCTV showing the groups walking from the parked-up cars to Railway Street, near to Alpine Club Lodge bar, all while Alfie Forsyth led the group.
Five people were stabbed, including Matthew, who was also hit over the head by Houghton with a rock in a sock before Dures plunged a knife into his chest. This would prove to be a fatal blow.
READ THE ECHO’S SPECIAL REPORT HERE: A violent plot, a code of silence & a young life taken too soon
Minutes after the fight broke out, the crowd scattered when a police car rounded the corner with its lights flashing. Matthew made his way towards nearby Moorgate, where he collapsed. Sean Ball was with him and also suffered a stab wound. Both men were taken to Aintree University Hospital, and Ball was arrested after receiving treatment.
Matthew was pronounced dead in hospital at 1.25am on July 29.
Houghton was handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 20 years in March 2024 after being found guilty of murder following a trial, while Dures evaded police and went on the run abroad. It had previously been heard how the striking on Matthew over the head was almost simultaneous with Dures fatally stabbing Matthew.
CCTV captures the moment Dures lunges at Matthew, and Matthew holding his chest immediately afterwards, with a jury concluding that was the moment Dures delivered the blow.
During the appeal hearing before Lord Justice Green, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb and Mr Justice Goose, Lord Justice Green said: “As for the applicant, the striking of the deceased with a makeshift weapon more or less simultaneous with the moment [Dures] fatally stabbed the deceased was evidence the applicant intentionally assisted or encouraged [Dures] in his unlawful attack upon the deceased.
“There was also evidence that the applicant was not acting in lawful defence of TD and/or C. This included that the weapon had been constructed at an earlier point than the second incident and the evidence that he ran to the scene with it.
“The jury would be entitled to conclude, upon the basis of the evidence tendered by the prosecution, that he had been acting offensively and that it had taken him more than just a very few seconds to make the weapon, and therefore the applicant must have prepared the weapon earlier than when the trouble started.”
During his appeal, Mr Simon Myerson KC, on behalf of Houghton, argued three key points as to why the conviction of Houghton for murder was unsafe. Summing up the points of the defence, Lord Justice Green said: “First, the judge did not sufficiently distinguish between speculation and proper inference in rejecting the submission of no case to answer and in his summing-up to the jury.
“Secondly, the judge did not set out sufficiently the competing inferences that could be drawn and compounded this error by failing to structure the summing-up by setting out the competing inferences, as it were, back-to-back, and thereby the jury could have been confused.
“Thirdly, the judge did not set out sufficiently the critical and key matters about which the facts were unknown or deficient and in particular those relating to the point in time when the fatal blow was struck and whether this could have been during the first incident prior to the incident leading to the fatality for which TD and the applicant were convicted.”
However, for all three of these points, the judges rejected Mr Myerson’s arguments, with them agreeing with the conduct and statements of the Honorary Recorder of Preston, Judge Robert Altham, who had presided over the case.
Houghton also appealed his sentence, with his counsel stating the starting point should have been 15 years, rather than 25 years, as it was “not open to the judge to conclude that the applicant had not acted in self-defence, as it lacked a proper evidential basis and was incompatible with the acquittal of the co-accused”, Finlay Cook.
Lord Justice Green referenced how the judge had dismissed the notion that there was no case to answer for Houghton when his team attempted to have his case thrown out, and stated: “The judge was entitled, having listened to the evidence during the trial, to proceed upon the basis that he did and to reject the suggestion that the applicant was acting in self-defence.”
He found that the 25-year starting point was fair, as Houghton knew Dures was carrying a knife when the brawl erupted, with the judges refusing the appeal against his sentence.
The result of the appeal had previously been unreportable due to Dures awaiting trial, with Dures himself appearing before the Court of Appeal in January after the Attorney General deemed his sentence too lenient after he was sentenced to 23 years in July last year.
As with Houghton, Dures’ sentence remained the same following a decision made by the Court of Appeal judges.
