22-year-old Tyson Fury has been found guilty of murdering his 31-year-old cousin, who was stabbed to death outside a bar.
A man has been convicted of killing Tyson Fury’s cousin in a bar brawl.
Liam O’Pray stabbed the world heavyweight boxing champion’s cousin Rico Burton outside a bar in Altrincham, Cheshire.
Violence broke out between two groups of men in the early hours of August 22 last year when the 22-year-old slashed Mr Barton, 31, with a seven-inch blade.
Liam O’Prey, pictured, killed Rico Burton and wounded Harvey Reilly with intent
Mr Barton (left), who is a cousin of boxer Tyson Fury (right), died after being stabbed in the neck outside a bar in Altrincham.
Mr Barton died of massive bleeding when a knife almost completely severed the main carotid artery in his neck, in the same incident in which a second man, Harvey Reilly, 18, was also stabbed, Manchester Crown Court heard.
O’Pray was previously convicted of possessing a knife in public in 2019, but the defendant lied to the jury: ‘I’m not a violent person.’
Shocking CCTV played in court showed a fight between the defendant’s friend and Mr Burton’s family and friends in the courtyard of Goose Green, the bar.
O’Pray had previously been refused entry to a bar and allegedly told a bouncer he was a professional boxer and would come back and ’cause him a problem’, which he denied.
Door staff and witnesses described the defendant as a ‘loose cannon’ and ‘very erratic’.
Just after 3am, a witness told the court that ‘absolute chaos’ broke out when Mr O’Pray’s friend, Malachi Hewitt-Brown, was punched by Mr Burton’s cousin Chacia Burton.
Mr Burton also then aimed a punch at Mr Hewitt-Brown.
A second later, O’Prey fatally stabbed Rico Burton in the left side of the neck, the court heard.
A police cordon and uniformed officers stand outside a bar in Goose Green, Altrincham, in the early hours of August 22 last year.
Police cars and vans were spotted on the streets of Altincham following the incident on August 22 last year
Michael Brady Casey, prosecuting, asked the defendant: ‘You took the knife out of your pocket and exposed the blade before you threw any punches?
‘Did you warn anyone? Did you say, ‘I have a knife, run away’? You wave about it?’
O’Pray said: ‘Everyone was in my face. I didn’t say a word. I was surrounded by them. I just reacted.’
Mr Brady added: ‘It’s standard for you, to go out drinking, to be violent.’
The prosecutor suggested that O’Prey ‘pretty much always carries a knife.’
But O’Prey told the jury that a month before the fatal incident he had been covered, ‘from head to toe’ in blood, kicked and stabbed in the hand after his £500 hat was taken from him.
The defendant said he bought the lock-knife because he was ‘worried’ after the incident in July and that the beating in ‘self-defence’ played on his mind.
He also said that he used the knife as a tool in his work as a groundworker.