This is the moment a cold-blooded killer was arrested after finally returning to the UK – 18 months after stabbing a teenager to death on a night out.
Police have today released video footage showing officers waiting on the tarmac as Thomas Dures, 22, landed back on British soil in January, ending a months-long manhunt that stretched across Europe.
Dures had spent 18 months on the run after brutally stabbing 19-year-old Matthew Daulby to death during a night out in Ormskirk, Lancashire, in July 2023.
He has now been jailed over the killing.
Matthew, who was out with friends, suffered a fatal stab wound to the chest after a sudden and shocking street attack in the early hours of the morning. Another man was also stabbed during the violence.
Despite desperate efforts by paramedics, Matthew was later pronounced dead in hospital. A Home Office post-mortem confirmed he had died from a single stab wound.
Chilling CCTV played to the court during Dures’ trial showed him and accomplice Henry Houghton lurking in an alleyway moments before the deadly altercation.
Armed with a lock knife, Dures can be seen striding towards Matthew’s group, opening the blade as he advanced.
Police have today released video footage showing officers waiting on the tarmac as Thomas Dures, 22, landed back on British soil in January
Thomas Dures who smirked as his victim’s mother told Preston Crown Court of her heartbreak over her son’s murder has been jailed for life
Matthew Daulby was described by his family as a ‘compassionate, loving and funny man’
Houghton followed, swinging a crude weapon made of a rock stuffed inside a sock.
Matthew was struck with the makeshift weapon, causing damage to his brain and leaving him disoriented. It was in this vulnerable state that Dures plunged the knife into his chest.
After the attack, Dures fled the scene – first looping around the town centre to discard his jacket on a park bench, and then dumping the murder weapon in a ginnel near Ormskirk Parish Church.
Both items were later recovered by a dog walker and an estate agent, and handed in to police.
Dures then vanished. Police launched multiple appeals to find him, but he evaded capture, fleeing the country and living abroad while Matthew’s family grieved.
It wasn’t until January 2025 – 18 months after the murder – that Dures finally handed himself in to a police station in Greece.
He was extradited to the UK shortly after, where he was met by officers and arrested the moment he stepped off the plane.
In a statement Lancashire Police said: ‘The Daulby family have had to wait patiently for the man responsible for delivering the fatal injury to answer for his crimes.
‘The video shows the moment Thomas Dures landed back on English soil, to face trial.
‘The Daulbys have had to grieve all of this time, knowing the man responsible for taking their son’s life was actively evading justice and celebrating his 21st birthday in the sun. Something Matthew will never be able to do.’
Dures fled to Greece after stabbing Matthew Daulby, 19, with a lock knife, outside a bar in Ormskirk
Matthew Daulby, 19, from Liverpool, was killed in a double stabbing in Ormskirk
Police added that Dures returned to the UK ‘with the intent of getting in the dock and telling a catalogue of lies’.
‘He pointed the finger of blame at everybody but himself and took no accountability for his actions. Thankfully the jury saw through his lies and ensured that Dures will be held accountable for his crimes.’
A jury at Preston Crown Court took less than three hours to find Dures guilty of Matthew’s murder and the wounding of a second man. He has now been sentenced to life in prison.
Yesterday marked two years since Matthew was killed and his family say the pain of losing him has not eased.
In a heartbreaking victim impact statement read to the court, Matthew’s mother Angela described Dures’ actions as ‘cowardly’ and said they had left her family having to do things ‘we would never have imagined having to do’.
Matthew’s father, Gary, described his son as ‘kind, funny, clever and fiercely loyal’ and said the family’s world had been ‘shattered beyond recognition’.
