The family of a teenager stabbed to death during New Year celebrations said now they ‘can grieve properly’ after his killer was jailed.
Areece Lloyd-Hall, now 18, was sentenced to at least 16 years at the Old Bailey for murdering Harry Pitman after a trivial row at a packed Primrose Hill.
He will be detained in a young offenders’ institution until he is 21 when he will be transferred to an adult jail, he was told at his sentencing hearing on Monday.
Lloyd Hall lunged at Harry with a knife, a keen Spurs fan who planned a career in the army and had studied law, as crowds watched New Year’s fireworks.
In sentencing, Judge Justice Kavanagh told the court that the killer had brandished a knife to feel ‘powerful’ and out of ‘bravado’ and rejected his claim that it was self-defence.
Footage shown to the jury showed Harry holding his neck and his T-shirt covered in blood. He pushed through crowds shouting ‘help’ but collapsed and died just before midnight.
Kavanagh said Harry, who was 16 when he was killed, was being ‘boisterous’ but was no threat to his killer.
Following the sentencing, Harry’s uncle Terry Woolveridge told Metro: ‘justice has been done, now we can grieve’.
Mr Woolveridge said: ‘Harry had a heart of gold. We lived together in the family home, he was just a great person.
‘We were very close. On the night it happened I was out celebrating New Year, I just couldn’t believe it when I was phoned. I thought it was a prank.
‘Myself and the rest of the family have been left devastated. The court case has been going on a long time but at last I think we have justice. Now we can grieve properly. Nothing will bring Harry back but at least his killer is behind bars.
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‘Harry was a peaceful person, what happened to him shows how much violence there is in London.’
Terry made a plea for young people to lay down their knives and end the cycle of violence in the capital.
He told Metro: ‘This violence has to stop. The youth need to lay down their knives. What happened to Harry could happen to anyone.’
Harry’s family were in court for the televised sentencing, where his sister Tayla Lohan read a victim impact statement to the court.
She said: ‘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.’
Ms Lohan said the sound of fireworks at any time of the year triggered their grief, and that it would “never be a happy New Year for our family again’.
Areece Lloyd-Hall from Westminster was also convicted of possession of an offensive weapon.
Justice Kavanagh told him while sentencing: ‘You stabbed Harry because you lost your temper with him and acted like a big man in front of your friends. In the moment, you did not care if he lived or died.’
Defence barrister David Bentley KC said Areece Lloyd-Hall was full of remorse for what he had done.
He told the court: ‘He also recognises the terrible trauma to Harry’s family but also his own family’.