A teenager has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 16 years for murdering 16-year-old Harry Pitman during a New Year’s Eve fireworks celebration in north London.
Areece Lloyd-Hall, now 18, was convicted at the Old Bailey in October after a retrial. The first jury had been unable to reach a verdict.
Harry was stabbed in the neck at Primrose Hill on 31 December 2023 after accidentally bumping into another boy while “play-fighting” and practising high kicks, the court heard. Lloyd-Hall, who was 16 at the time, attacked him with a pointed dagger just metres from uniformed police officers stationed nearby.
Harry collapsed and died minutes before midnight.
Sentencing Lloyd-Hall on Monday, Mr Justice Cavanagh said the teenager had carried a knife to feel “powerful” and out of “bravado”, rejecting his claim that it was for protection. “You stabbed Harry because you lost your temper with him and you acted like a big man in front of your friends,” the judge said. “In that split second, you must have realised Harry might be killed or injured, but in the moment you did not care if he lived or died.”
The judge said the case highlighted “the dangers of young people carrying knives in public” and should serve as a “warning and deterrent”.
Lloyd-Hall had already been convicted of possessing an offensive weapon. He claimed in his defence that he thought he had struck Harry with the sheath, not the blade, in an attempt to push him away.
During the sentencing, Harry’s family wept as Lloyd-Hall was led from the dock. His sister, Tayla Lohan, told the court the family was “haunted” by the “senseless and brutal” killing.
“As a family we all feel guilty that 2023 was the first year we had not all celebrated together,” she said. “Harry went out to celebrate with his friends and he did not come home.”
She added that the sound of fireworks now triggered their grief: “It will never be a happy New Year for our family again.”
Describing her brother as bright, energetic and entrepreneurial, Ms Lohan said Harry had been studying law at college and hoped to follow his great-grandfather into the Army. A devoted Tottenham Hotspur supporter and boxing fan, he was “full of charm” and popular among his peers.
