{"id":944831,"date":"2026-05-07T23:36:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T23:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/944831\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T23:36:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T23:36:21","slug":"machete-wielding-teenager-walks-free-from-court-after-storming-party-screaming-well-chop-your-head-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/944831\/","title":{"rendered":"Machete-wielding teenager walks free from court after storming party screaming ‘we’ll chop your head off’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leighton Conlan and an unnamed 16-year-old yelled: “We’ll slice your head off, chop your head off and blow your head off”\"liverpoolecho\"<\/p>\n

19:21, 07 May 2026Updated 19:21, 07 May 2026<\/p>\n

\"Leighton<\/p>\n

Leighton Conlan leaving Liverpool Crown Court(Image: Liverpool Echo)<\/p>\n

A teenage burglar walked free from court after storming a New Year’s Eve party while armed with a machete. Balaclava-clad Leighton Conlan, 18, burst into the victim’s living room and pinned him to the ground with the 30cm blade against his neck.<\/p>\n

The incident occurred shortly after 9.40pm on December 31 2025, when the male victim was at home with a number of friends celebrating the turn of the new year. Conlan and another male, a 16-year-old who cannot be named for legal reasons, entered the property under cover of darkness while shouting: “Get down, we’ll slice your head off, chop your head off and blow your head off.”<\/p>\n

The pair appeared at Liverpool Crown Court today, May 7, after pleading guilty to burglary and threatening a person with a bladed article in a private place. Prosecutor Matthew Conway told the court the victim was in his flat off Woodlands Road, Oxton, with his brother and three friends when one of the female guests said she was going to call her mum from the bathroom.<\/p>\n

He said: “What in fact took place… was a series of text messages to Leighton Conlan effectively giving him the green light, as it were, to come in.”<\/p>\n

The female wrote: “Come in, hurry up but you’ll have to wait behind me while I go up. I need to buzz yous into it.”<\/p>\n

Conlan wrote: “Come out like you’re on the phone”. The female responded “walk in”, and confirmed that the front door to the flat was unlocked.<\/p>\n

Mr Conway said: “Five minutes after she left the front room, the lights went off and the two defendants entered in balaclavas. They shouted ‘get down, we’ll slice your head off, chop your head off and blow your head off’.<\/p>\n

“One of the defendants, described as a white male (Conlan), went behind the couch, pushed the victim down with a large machete to the back of his neck and said ‘don’t move’.<\/p>\n

“The second defendant went to the middle of the living room and took the PlayStation 5 from the cabinet and walked out of the property.”<\/p>\n

The pair also stole a bottle of vodka before leaving the flat with two females. The victim called the police, and Conlan and the 16-year-old were found a short time later at a flat belonging to one of the females. The stolen items were recovered and returned to their owner, and the 30cm machete was seized.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the victim said: “Immediately after the incident I found myself shell-shocked. I think I had six panic attacks while on the phone to the police. I feel this ordeal has scarred me for life. I don’t want to stay in my flat anymore.<\/p>\n

“Immediately after this happened, I didn’t stay in my flat for several days due to fear and paranoia. I’m scared this will happen again. I’m scared people connected to the defendants will approach me.<\/p>\n

“What if I was alone in the flat – would they have killed me, or would they have just assaulted me? Due to the incident I will forever be scared to be in my own home.”<\/p>\n

\"Leighton<\/p>\n

Leighton Conlan leaving Liverpool Crown Court(Image: Liverpool Echo)<\/p>\n

The court heard Conlan, of Bakersfield Drive in Southport<\/a>, has no previous convictions. The 16-year-old, from Liverpool, has two previous convictions for possession of a bladed article and possession of cannabis.<\/p>\n

Sentencing, Judge Simon Medland said: “You’re in the dock of the Crown Court now. It’s not the youth court of the magistrates. You will see the door there that takes you down to the cells. My question for us is do you want to go through that door?<\/p>\n

“Young men with knives are a great danger to themselves and to other people because young men can act impulsively. When I finish this case, I will be resuming a murder case where a young man is accused of acting impulsively with a knife, and he stabbed another man in the back, and the man bled out on the floor of a flat.<\/p>\n

“That young man is now charged with murder, and if convicted will get a life sentence with a minimum term of 25 years to serve before parole. Just as important is that another young man is now dead because of what he did with the knife.<\/p>\n

“You need to have a think about the way you lead your lives and what you want to do. If you don’t care whether people die and if you don’t care whether you spend your life in prison, then carry on, because you will be caught and these things will happen.<\/p>\n

“On the other hand, you can take this as a golden opportunity to do something with your life where you can have self respect, a place in the world and something to look forward to. At the end of the day it’s on you to decide.”<\/p>\n

He sentenced Leighton Conlan to a three-year community order, 200 hours of unpaid work, and 30 rehabilitation days. To the 16-year-old, he handed a youth rehabilitation order with intensive supervision and surveillance.<\/p>\n

He also made a three-year restraining order banning both defendants from approaching the victim in future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leighton Conlan and an unnamed 16-year-old yelled: “We’ll slice your head off, chop your head off and blow…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":944832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8815],"tags":[2644,748,30,188,393,4884,179,39241,11653,371,16,15],"class_list":["post-944831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-liverpool","tag-birkenhead","tag-britain","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-england","tag-great-britain","tag-liverpool","tag-oxton","tag-premium","tag-southport","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116535924549377039","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/944832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}