A 16-year-old boy accused of fatally stabbing nine-year-old Aria Thorpe claimed the fatal injury occurred during what he described as a “fight,” the BBC reported. The teenager denies charges of murder and manslaughter in relation to Aria’s death at a house in Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset, on December 15 last year.Prosecutor Ray Tully KC told Bristol Crown Court the defendant admitted he had the knife when the fatal injury occurred. He claimed he was trying to intimidate Aria and expected her to flinch when he stabbed her with the knife, the prosecution said.A post-mortem examination found that Aria died from a single stab wound that pierced her heart and punctured her lung. Medical evidence indicated that the injury required at least light force.Jurors heard that after the incident, the teenager went to a nearby railway station and told a group of young people that he had stabbed a child.“I was playing with a knife. I got into the knife. I accidentally stabbed her with a really big knife,” he said.The court heard he also described himself as a “murderer”, said “I’m done with… why did you do this?”, and searched online for “what happens if I kill” after borrowing a phone.
The police were alerted by a young man at the station. The teenager later boarded the train, but officers found him and arrested him.Although the boy later expressed remorse during police questioning, he did not initially mention any fighting or claim that Aria had reached for the knife, prosecutors said.He told investigators in a statement: “I grabbed a knife and stabbed her in the chest. I didn’t use a lot of force, but it was a big knife. I don’t know why I did it, it just happened.”