Reporting restrictions lifted on teenage stabber

Harry Schick Photo: Metropolitan Police

An Old Bailey judge has lifted reporting restrictions on a teenager who lured his best friend to a Croydon park before stabbing him 13 times ‘for personal gratification’ and who was this week  jailed for nine years.

Judge Richard Hawkins lifted the ban on identifying the young offender, saying “In view of the gravity of this case, the press ought to be free to report it”.

Harry Schick, 17, from west London, lured his friend Gavin Doyle to Lloyd Park in March this year before stabbing him repeatedly with a large knife, the Old Bailey heard. Both boys were studying for ‘A’ levels at Berkshire’s Pangbourne College.

Doyle had paid Schick £400 to get him an air pistol, which he was at the time too young to buy himself.  Schick agreed to hand it over in the park, but when Doyle, who was then 16 but is 17 now, turned his back, Schick stabbed him repeatedly in an attack that lasted an hour. He then took his friend’s mobile phone and deleted records of contact between them before throwing it onto the injured Doyle’s chest. The teenager was then able to use it to call 999 and, despite serious injuries including a pierced liver and lung, survived due to the quick response of the London Ambulance service.

The attack left him in intensive care suffering from wounds all over his body and may no longer be able to fulfil his dream of joining the Royal Marines.

Schick, who pleaded guilty to attempted murder, has since apologised for the attack. In a letter his mother told the court that he was “well thought of” and “popular” and had won a school prize for consideration to others. She called what he had done “tragic and incomprehensible”. Detective Sergeant Tim Hammond said: “He is a strange character and I think a very dangerous character. We have nothing to suggest any motive other than he wanted to kill the victim for his own personal gratification”.

Leave a Reply