Murder accused teen feared being stabbed - court

A teenager accused of murdering a 16-year-old boy by stabbing him in the neck during a New Year's Eve fireworks night on London’s Primrose Hill has told a court he thought the victim might "stab" him.

Harry Pitman was in a crowd gathered to watch the fireworks display over the River Thames from the north London location, when he was fatally injured shortly before midnight on 31 December.

The 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named due to his age, denies murder and possessing an offensive weapon.

He told the Old Bailey he only intended to hit Harry with a sheath that contained a knife, in order to defend himself.

Giving evidence in his defence, the defendant said he had seen Harry and his friends being "rowdy" earlier that evening as if they were drunk, and that Harry was a "bit full of himself".

He added he himself had been standing away from his group of friends when he heard his sister shouting and thought she was "in trouble", so ran into the situation not knowing what was going on.

"I thought I would show the handle of my knife to the group to get them to go away," he told the court.

Harry had then come towards him, he said, and he screamed at him to move away, but Harry had sworn at him and hit him with a right hook that connected with his face, the court was told.

The jury was shown a video of the event filmed by a witness, which showed the defendant with his right hand out.

Asked by his counsel what he was doing, the boy said: "I am showing the handle of the knife."

The teenager's barrister, David Bentley KC, described how the sheath that covered the knife could be seen in a video flying through the air, before Harry suffered the fatal blow.

Mr Bentley asked: "Were you wanting to stab him with the knife?"

"No," the defendant replied.

Mr Bentley continued by asking if the boy knew "how the sheath came off", to which he responded "no".

"Did you take it off in order to stab him?" Mr Bentley asked, and the boy said "no".

The defendant also denied intending to stab Harry with the knife, or intending to cause him really serious harm or to kill him.

The boy told jurors he thought the sheath was still on the knife at the time of the incident.

"When you last saw the knife was it in the sheath or out of the sheath?" asked Mr Bentley.

"In the sheath," the boy replied.

"Why was it necessary to strike out at him even with the knife with the sheath on?"

"I think I just wanted him to get away from me because he was attacking me," the defendant said.

"What did you think would happen if you didn't get him away from you?"

"He might stab me," the defendant replied.

The defendant, who was studying at college at the time of the incident and has no previous convictions, told the court he obtained a kitchen knife from a friend about three weeks before the incident on Primrose Hill.

Asked why he got a knife, the defendant said he was "scared" because "a lot of people were getting hurt around the area".

"I was paranoid going out - it was to protect myself," he said.

Jurors heard he had witnessed a number of incidents involving knives; including seeing his brother being stabbed when he was aged five or six, witnessing a friend being threatened with a knife, and seeing a boy needing medical treatment after being stabbed.

One of his friends had also been stabbed to death outside a college in June last year, he said.

The boy also told the court his mental health had suffered as a result and he had started "seeing things and hearing things" and feeling people were going to "hurt" him.

The trial continues.

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