A youth accused of stabbing a 16-year-old boy on London’s Primrose Hill on New Year’s Eve told a court he carried a knife after attacks on friends and family made him “paranoid”.
Harry Pitman was fatally stabbed in the neck with what was described as a hunting knife after a scuffle as he waited to watch fireworks.
He collapsed and died minutes later, shortly before midnight.
A youth, who was 16 at the time, is accused of Harry’s murder and possessing an offensive weapon.
Giving evidence at his Old Bailey trial on Monday, the defendant said the knife, which he initially hid under a bin close to the scene of the incident, was kept for self-defence after a series of local knife attacks, including on his own brother, throughout his childhood.
The youth, who cannot be identified because of his age, said he did not know what happened in the immediate aftermath of the incident but said the victim had attacked him and been “full of himself” before the alleged stabbing.
The court heard the defendant was studying at college at the time of the incident and had no previous convictions.
The defendant told the court his older brother was stabbed when he was aged “five or six”, and he had taken anxiety counselling sessions during his childhood.
The youth said another boy was stabbed in the chest outside his home in the summer last year, while he also knew one mutual friend who was stabbed to death outside a college.
Asked by defence barrister David Bentley KC how the incidents made him feel, the youth told the court: “I was very paranoid when I did go out.
“I always felt like someone was trying to hurt me.”
The defendant also claimed he was suffering from hallucinations and “hearing things” alongside his anxiety.
The court heard the youth obtained the knife three weeks before the incident from a friend because he was “scared”.
He said: “He (the friend) suggested that I should carry a knife because a lot of people were getting stabbed in the area.”
Mr Bentley asked: “Did you ever intend to use that knife to cause injury to anyone?”
“No,” the youth replied.
The defendant told jurors he had gone to Primrose Hill by cab to watch the fireworks and get food afterwards for a friend’s birthday, and had been carrying the knife in his waistband.
He first noticed Harry when he moved towards the top of the hill, and described the victim and his friends as being “a bit rowdy and all over the place”.
Asked about Harry specifically, the youth said: “He was really quickly going from one person to another.
“He seemed like he was very energetic and full of himself.”
He added: “I just wanted to go home because I don’t like other people being in my business.”
The youth ran over to Harry and his group and showed his knife handle to them after he was told a friend was getting into a fight, the court heard.
He said Harry approached him and called him a “f****** c***”, before hitting him on the right side of his face.
Mobile phone footage of the incident was then replayed in court at both normal speed and in slow motion.
Mr Bentley asked: “Did you intend to stab Harry with that knife?”
“No,” the defendant replied.
“Did you intend to kill him?” Mr Bentley asked.
“No,” the youth repeated.
“Why was it necessary to strike out at him even with the knife in the sheath?” the lawyer asked.
The defendant said: “I think I just wanted him to get away from me.”
Mr Bentley continued: “Did you know you had stabbed him?”
“No, but I thought it was definitely possible,” the defendant said.
Asked about the immediate aftermath of the incident, he said: “I thought maybe I hit him (Harry) with the sheath and it flew off.”
The defendant denied he removed the sheath deliberately.
The court previously heard the incident appeared to have been sparked by a scuffle between Harry and one of the defendant’s friends shortly after 11.30pm.
Harry was said to have been “playfighting” and seeing how high he could kick, causing him to lose his balance and bumping into the boy standing behind.
The victim swung a punch during the subsequent fracas before the defendant brought his right arm upwards in an arc and down, stabbing him in the neck, the court was told.
Police body-worn camera footage showed Harry moving through the crowd seeking help before he collapsed.
The defendant told the court he ran to a nearby road on his own “in panic” following the incident, before hiding the knife under a bin.
His friends then met him there and told him Harry had been stabbed, before the youth picked up the knife and walked away from the area, getting a cab back to his mother’s address.
He said he then returned the knife to the friend who gave it to him the same evening, and the friend asked him why.
“I said ‘I might have done something with it, I don’t know what to do’,” the youth told the court.
The defendant voluntarily entered Hammersmith police station with his father on January 4 after seeing news of the stabbing on the television, the court heard.
He admitted to the court that he had lied about a series of details in two subsequent police interviews, including that he did not have a knife on him at all on New Year’s Eve.
Asked by Mr Bentley why he lied in the interviews, the defendant said: “I was panicked and I did not want to go to prison. I was scared.”
Jocelyn Ledward KC, in cross-examination, said the defendant would struggle to remember his brother’s stabbing given his age at the time.
A report by a children’s mental health specialist on the youth several months after the incident outside his home said he “did not think about the stabbing anymore” and had “no flashbacks”, Ms Ledward said.
The defendant replied: “It was not necessarily the stabbing I was thinking of. It was about what might happen to me.”
The youth, now aged 17, who has no previous convictions, denies the charges against him.
The Old Bailey trial continues.
