![\"Handout](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1753971733_544_2.80849785.jpg\")
Harvey Willgoose was stabbed to death at his school in February (South Yorkshire Police\/PA)<\/p>\nA teenager, also 15, has admitted the manslaughter of Harvey at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield in February, but denies his murder.<\/p>\n
His barrister, Gul Nawaz Hussain KC told jurors on Friday that, if they clear his client of murder \u201cit doesn\u2019t mean Harvey\u2019s death is any less tragic or pointless\u201d.<\/p>\n
Harvey Willgoose was stabbed to death at his school in February (South Yorkshire Police\/PA)<\/p>\n
Mr Hussain said: \u201cA loved son has lost his life, a family have been deprived of him. A family mourns him.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnother boy of a similar age had admitted his fault and, whatever happens, will pay the price for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Hussain said: \u201c(The defendant) has accepted responsibility for what he has done. He needs to pay a price, but that price must be a just one.<\/p>\n
\u201cA not guilty verdict to murder is the just verdict in this case, according to the evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
The barrister told the jury at Sheffield Crown Court that his client had a \u201chorrific home life\u201d and suffered a \u201chorrific background of bullying\u201d.<\/p>\n
He pointed to evidence the boy had been subjected to racist bullying and bullying related to a medical issue.<\/p>\n
Mr Hussain said \u201call that was what came together\u201d when he encountered Harvey on February 3, and this was the \u201cfinal straw\u201d.<\/p>\n
The barrister told the jurors he wanted to explore why his client had reason to fear Harvey, telling them he wanted to make it \u201cvery, very, clear\u201d that he was not \u201cmaligning Harvey or dishonouring his memory\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWe are not saying that Harvey was all bad or (the defendant) was all good. Nothing of the sort.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he discussed evidence of Harvey\u2019s \u201cassociation with football hooliganism\u201d, one school record describing him as \u201cextremely aggressive and threatening\u201d and a social care record saying he \u201cthreatened aggression\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Hussain told the jury that this evidence would \u201chelp you understand why (the defendant) was in fear that day\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWhen it comes to deciding whether (the defendant) was genuinely scared of Harvey, these things are important.\u201d<\/p>\n
The jury has heard about a range of interactions between the defendant and Harvey on the morning of February 3, and Mr Hussain said: \u201c(The defendant) wanted to avoid Harvey. He did not want trouble.\u201d<\/p>\n
But he described how, in a lesson just before the tragic incident, Harvey had mocked the defendant and been aggressive towards him.<\/p>\n
And he told the jury how, in the CCTV footage of the stabbing which has been showed several times during the trial, it could be seen that Harvey was the \u201cfirst one to make it physical\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Hussain said his client thought it was an aggressive approach from Harvey and the fact that he stabbed him so hard, breaking one of his ribs and piercing his heart, was further evidence that he \u201clost control\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said his client was \u201cso scared of being hurt, so frightened, so devoid of calm, that that boy had never ever felt this way in his life before\u201d.<\/p>\n
The barrister also pointed to how his client was heard to to say \u201cyou know I can\u2019t control it\u201d, by a teacher seconds after stabbing Harvey.<\/p>\n
Mr Hussain told the jury this was the \u201cbest piece of evidence that you all have as to why (the defendant) did what he did\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cHe said this before he\u2019d spoken to a solicitor, before he\u2019d spoken to anyone who could tell him what to say, before he\u2019d even had time to think about what he\u2019d done, to process it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Hussain concluded his closing speech to the jury on Friday morning and the judge, Mrs Justice Ellenbogen, began summing up the evidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A teenager, also 15, has admitted the manslaughter of Harvey at All Saints Catholic High School in Sheffield…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":309992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8817],"tags":[748,393,4884,1620,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-309991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sheffield","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-sheffield","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114955081819210260","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309991","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=309991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}