The death of a 15 -year -old schoolboy is not “any less tragic or in vain”, if he is approved by the knife -killing disciple, a jury has been told.
Harvey Wilgose died after attacking at All Sants Catholic High School in Sheffield on 3 February during his lunch break.
A fellow student, who is also 15 years old, is on trial in the Sheffield Crown Court after accepting the mangelotter, but is refusing to kill.
His barrister, Gul Nawaz Hussain Casey told the gamblers on Friday that if he approved his customer of murder, “does not mean that Harvey’s death is any less tragic or meaningless”.
Mr. Hussain said: “A dear son has lost his life, a family has been deprived of him. A family mourned him.
“Another boy of a similar age had accepted his mistake and whatever happens, he will pay the price for it.
“The responsibility has been accepted for what the defendant has done. He needs to pay a price, but this price should be only one.”
He told the jury that according to the evidence, he would not be guilty of taking decisions only in this matter.
Barrister told the court that the defendant had a “frightening home life” and faced “background of bullying”.
He said “all that came together” when he faced Harvey and it was “the last straw”.
Mr. Hussain said that his customer had the reason for fear of Harvey.
But he told the jury that he wanted to make it “very, very, clear” that he was “not rejecting Harvey or insulting his memory”.
He said: “We are not saying that Harvey was all bad or the defendants were all good. Nothing like this.”
He discussed Harvey’s evidence of Harvey’s “Football Gundagardi”, in which a school record described him as “highly aggressive and threatening” and a social care record says he “threatens aggression”.
Several conversations have been described between the defendant and Harvey that morning, and Mr. Hussain said: “The defendant wanted to avoid Harvey. He did not want trouble.”
However, he explained how, in a lesson just before the incident, Harvey made fun of the defendant and was aggressive towards him.
In CCTV footage of stabbing, Mr. Hussain said that it could be seen that Harvey was “the first to make it physical”.
Barrister said that his client thought that this was an aggressive approach to Harvey and the fact that he stabbed her so hard, broke one of her ribs and piercing her heart, further evidence that she “lost control”.
He said that his customer is “scared of injury, so frightened, devoid of calm, that boy had never felt like this in his life before”.
Barrister also explained how his client was heard to say that “you know that I cannot control it” after a teacher stabbing Harvey by seconds.
Mr. Hussain told the jury that it was “the best piece of evidence as to why all of you (defendants) did what he did”.
He concluded his closing speech for the jury on Friday morning and Judge, Mrs. Justice Ellenbogen, began the evidence briefly.
