Verdict delivered in Halifax double murder trial

A MAN who stabbed two men to death in the street has been told he faces life in prison after being found guilty of both murders.

Rashane Douglas bowed his head when the unanimous verdict was announced at Bradford Crown Court on Tuesday.

The 19-year-old, wearing glasses and dressed in a dark suit, was found guilty of the murders of Haidar Shah, 19, and Joshua Clark, 21, who he stabbed with an 8ins-long locking knife outside Maggie’s nightclub in Halifax in the early hours of October 1 last year.

Douglas was found not guilty of the attempted murder of a third man, Brandon Coope, 18, who received a slash wound, but guilty of wounding with intent.

Joshua Clark, who died aged 21, and Haidar Shah, who died aged 19 (Image: West Yorkshire Police)

Standing beside him in the dock was his friend Yaseen Iqbal, 18, wearing glasses and a blue zip-up top. He was found guilty of assisting an offender.

Addressing both men in a courtroom filled with family members and police officers, His Honour Judge Jonathan Rose said Douglas faced a life sentence in prison for the two murders, and told Iqbal that he had “interfered with justice” by assisting Douglas to avoid arrest.

He remanded both men in custody and adjourned the proceedings for sentencing at a later date.

Douglas and Iqbal left the dock without speaking, but Douglas glanced across to the public gallery as he was being led to the cells.

The violence that led to the two men’s deaths erupted after Douglas, who was in the nightclub with Iqbal and another friend, Levell Clarke, approached a booth where Mr Shah was sitting with a woman named Kira Hamilton.

Footage from CCTV cameras showed Douglas removing Mr Shah’s arm from Ms Hamilton’s shoulder and replacing it with his own.
 

Police in Halifax after the murders (Image: PA)

Ms Hamilton later told police that Douglas had asked her: “Why you sat in front of me doing this?” before getting “angry” and asking Mr Shah his name and where he was from.

During the confrontation, Mr Shah got up and walked away from the booth, later walking Ms Hamilton to a taxi outside the nightspot and returning inside.

Prosecutor Mark McKone KC said Douglas was seen on CCTV appearing to follow the pair down the road, before waiting in the club for Mr Shah to return.

The stabbings happened at 3.45am after Douglas, with his friends Iqbal and Clark, and Mr Shah, with his friends Mr Clark and Mr Coope, had all left the bar.

CCTV from the street outside showed an attempt by Mr Coope to punch Douglas before Mr Shah and Mr Clark crossed the road towards him.

Douglas then pulled a knife – which he had earlier smuggled into the club inside his trainer – with his right hand from his pocket and, after initially appearing to hide it behind his leg, stabbed all three men very fast.

The footage, which prompted sobs from the public gallery, then showed Douglas running away and throwing the knife down a drain.

In court Mr Coope described his confusion at what had happened during and after the stabbings, which he said was “all a blur”.

He said he didn’t know which one of his friends to go to, and that both started to go “slightly blue”.

Members of the public and staff from the nightclub performed CPR on the injured men and used clothing to staunch their wounds. One witness said: “I just remember being covered in blood.”

Douglas fled the scene with the assistance of Iqbal, who helped him avoid arrest by joining him in a taxi, letting him stay at his house that night, and helping him dispose of the clothing he had been wearing at the time.

Iqbal said he only found out that Douglas had stabbed people just before he told him to hand himself into the police.

Douglas went to the police hours after the stabbing at 10.45am on October 1.

Messages sent by Douglas’s friends after the fatal stabbings talked about the event of the night with one reading: “his knife works mad” in reaction to the three stabbings.

At trial Douglas denied murder, attempted murder, and wounding with intent. He pleaded guilty to possessing a knife in a public place.

It later emerged that Douglas had already been convicted of carrying a blade. He was found with a locking knife in his waistband by police who stopped a car in which he was travelling in Huddersfield in November 2022.

After pleading guilty to that offence Douglas was sentenced to four months in prison suspended for two years.