Teenager murdered the 'wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time'... then claimed he was fast asleep

A teenage killer who murdered an innocent man in a senseless case of mistaken identity has lost a bid to have his life sentence reduced. Joshua Prescott, then 19, and his friends Kane Adamson, 18, and Ben Dawber, 17, stabbed Thomas Williamson to death in Wigan in September 2021.

It came as the trio were hunting down a man who had just punched someone outside a pub. The dispute had nothing to do with them, but they decided to get involved anyway.

Mr Williamson, who had mental health problems and was out for a walk to clear his head at the time, suffered a series of fatal stab wounds, including one that penetrated his heart and lung. He died at the scene in Tyldesley.

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Judge Maurice Greene described Mr Williamson, who was completely innocent, as 'the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time'. On the night of the murder his three attackers had been looking for a different man, David Shuttleworth, who had earlier that night punched another man, Jake Dinning.

A trial at Minshull Street Crown Court heard that on the fateful night Prescott, Adamson and Dawber, who were said to have been drinking vodka and inhaling nitrous oxide balloons, were driving by the Castle Street bar 'looking for trouble'. They 'took the opportunity to involve themselves', prosecutor Jason Pitter KC told the trial.

When they pulled up, Mr Shuttleworth ran off as he believed the three men in the Chevrolet Kalos on false plates were 'associates' of the man he had just punched.

The car drove around the centre of Tyldesley 'on the