Teen killer who stabbed schoolboy at New Year’s Eve fireworks jailed for 16 years

A teenager who murdered a 16-year-old boy at a New Year’s Eve event in north London has been sentenced to at least 16 years.

Areece Lloyd-Hall, 18, was found guilty last month of the murder of Harry Pitman.

Harry was fatally stabbed in Primrose Hill just before midnight onDecember 31, 2023, after meeting up with his friends to watch fireworks.

He bumped into Lloyd-Hall, who had also gone to the park to see the display over the River Thames, while play-fighting.

The college student pushed forward and lunged at Harry with a pointed dagger, only metres away from where police officers had been stationed at around 11.30pm.

Mobile phone footage captured the moment Lloyd-Hall pulled a knife from his waistband and swung the knife down onto Pitman’s neck.

In police body-worn camera footage, Harry can be seen holding his neck, his white T-shirt covered in blood, as he pushed through crowds of revellers calling to officers for ‘help’.

He died minutes later.

Pitman’s family previously told Metro that Harry was a ‘wonderful boy’ who ‘always stood up for what’s right’.

Harry, who lived in Tottenham, had four siblings. Sister Tayla Lohan said the sound of fireworks reminds them of losing Harry.

‘It will never be a happy New Year for our family again,’ she said, adding: ‘As a family, we all feel guilty that year, 2023, was the first year we had not all celebrated together.

‘Harry went out to celebrate with his friends and he did not come home.’

Lloyd-Hall, who was 16 at the time of the attack, claimed he thought he had only hit Harry with the sheath and did not intend to kill him.

The teen was suffering from cannabis-induced paranoia and may have been experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, having lost a friend to knife crime in 2023, the court was told.

‘I did not want him to lose his life,’ Lloyd-Hall told the Old Bailey. ‘I feel horrible for what I caused. It was not my intention.’

Lloyd-Hall fled the scene and turned himself in, joined by his father, after a media appeal.

The knife scabbard, found at the scene, had the defendant’s DNA on it.

At the first trial last year, a jury found Lloyd-Hall guilty of possession of an offensive weapon but failed to agree on the murder charge.

A guilty verdict was returned for Lloyd-Hall, from Westminster, following eight hours of jury deliberation.

The judge said today that the killer’s PTSD and ADHD conditions provided some mitigation.

Justice Cavanagh said: ‘You stabbed Harry because you lost your temper with him and you acted like a big man in front of your friends.’

He added: ‘In the moment, you did not care if he lived or died.’

Lloyd-Hall will be detained in a young offenders’ institution until he is 21, when he will go to an adult prison.

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