{"id":535870,"date":"2025-10-29T17:31:27","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T17:31:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/535870\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T17:31:27","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T17:31:27","slug":"teen-found-guilty-of-murder-at-primrose-hill-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/535870\/","title":{"rendered":"Teen found guilty of murder at Primrose Hill event"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FamilyFamily handout \/ PA Media<\/p>\n

Harry Pitman was stabbed once in the neck on 31 December 2023<\/p>\n

An teenager has been found guilty of murdering 16-year-old Harry Pitman, who was stabbed in the neck at a New Year’s Eve event in north London. <\/p>\n

Areece Lloyd-Hall was convicted at the Old Bailey following a retrial after jurors in the first trial were unable to reach a verdict.<\/p>\n

Lloyd-Hall, from Westminster, was found guilty by a majority of 11 to one after almost eight hours of deliberation. He had already been convicted of possessing an offensive weapon.<\/p>\n

The fatal stabbing took place at Primrose Hill on 31 December 2023 after Harry accidentally bumped into another boy while “play-fighting” and practising high kicks, the jury was told.<\/p>\n

Prosecution barrister Jocelyn Ledward KC told jurors “revelry turned to tragedy in the blink of an eye”.<\/p>\n

Harry and Lloyd-Hall were strangers who had each gone to watch the fireworks with separate groups of friends.<\/p>\n

Earlier that evening, Special Constable David Smith said Harry had seemed excitable and “physically bounced” up to him for a friendly chat before “fist bumping” another reveller nearby.<\/p>\n

\"PAPA Media<\/p>\n

Police officers were seen on Primrose Hill in the days following Harry’s death<\/p>\n

The attack happened in front of a crowd gathered in the popular park to watch fireworks over the River Thames.<\/p>\n

Lloyd-Hall, now aged 18, pushed forward and lunged at Harry with a pointed dagger, metres from where uniformed police officers were stationed.<\/p>\n

In “shocking” mobile phone footage played in court, a knife sheath was seen to fly through the air during the fast-paced incident.<\/p>\n

Harry held his neck, his white T-shirt covered in blood, as he pushed through crowds calling to officers for “help”.<\/p>\n

He collapsed and died minutes later, shortly before midnight.<\/p>\n

College student Lloyd-Hall, who was 16 at the time, claimed he thought he had only hit Harry with the sheath in an attempt to get Harry away from him.<\/p>\n

‘Not my intention’<\/p>\n

He said: “I did not want him to lose his life.<\/p>\n

“I feel horrible for what I caused. It was not my intention.”<\/p>\n

He said he ran off not realising what had happened because he was holding a knife and knew there were police officers nearby.<\/p>\n

Jurors were told Lloyd-Hall was suffering from cannabis-induced paranoia and may have suffered post-traumatic stress disorder triggered by witnessing the aftermath of an earlier stabbing and the loss of a friend to knife crime in June 2023.<\/p>\n

At the first trial in October last year, a jury found Lloyd-Hall guilty of possession of an offensive weapon but failed to agree on other charges, it can now be reported.<\/p>\n

There were gasps from Harry’s family sitting in court as Lloyd-Hall was convicted of murder.<\/p>\n

The teenager will be sentenced at the Old Bailey on 10 November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Family handout \/ PA Media Harry Pitman was stabbed once in the neck on 31 December 2023 An…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535871,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-535870","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115458650508137025","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535870","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=535870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}