Teen allegedly bragged “I’m a murderer” after stabbing nine-year-old Aria Thorpe

This the moment a teen allegedly bragged to his pals after stabbing a nine-year-old girl to death at her home, a court heard.

Aria Thorpe was allegedly murdered by the 16-year-old, who can’t be named, in Weston-super-Mare, North Somerset, on December 15 last year.

Jurors heard the teen fled the home after the horror and walked to a nearby railway station.

Footage played to Bristol Crown Court shows the defendant telling a group of other youths he had stabbed someone.

The court heard he claimed he was “playing around” with Aria when he “accidentally stabbed her with a really big knife”.

The boy also said he expected Aria to “flinch” when he “jabbed the knife” towards her in an attempt to “scare her”, jurors were told.

He also allegedly told one of the group, who he knew: “Yo (name) I’m a murderer. I accidentally killed someone.”

The boy also told the group of youngsters: “You’ll see it on the news later.”

Further footage shows police storming a train at Worle railway station after one of the youths called 999.

Officers can be seen cuffing the teenager, who was found sat on the floor of a carriage on board.

Giving evidence today, he told the court he had picked up a knife from the kitchen of Aria’s home and went into the lounge where she was sitting on the sofa.

“Aria stood up and I was waving around the knife,” he told the jury.

“Then at some point I decided that I was going to try to make her flinch and scare her, to get a reaction.

“I leaned forward, acted like I was fencing.”

 

The defendant said Aria had been in front of him at the time.

“She had almost taken a step forward but without taking a step forward because before she could, it happened,” he said.

“I don’t know what she was doing.

“The knife went into her. Then I pulled it out. I didn’t know what to do. She put her hand to her chest.”

The boy said Aria then fell to the floor on her front.

“I thought she had died,” he told the court.

“I got scared, I panicked. So I ran to the kitchen with the knife and I put it back into the sink.”

Jurors previously heard how Aria had spent the afternoon at a dance class before she was picked up by her mum Victoria Hull.

She ate pizza and seemed “bubbly and happy” – asking her mum if she could have the last Oreo.

Victoria added: “She said something like ‘see you after work mummy’. I replied ‘see you after work, love you’.”

The mum then headed out to work at Pontins, where she was doing evening shifts to earn extra money for Christmas.

She became aware people were trying to contact her and left work, arriving at a friend’s house at 7.18pm.

“The police were there,” she added.

“This is when I found out about Aria. I phoned my mum. Female police officers took me to my parents’ house.

“It was all a blur.”

A post-mortem examination found Aria had suffered a single stab wound to the chest and would have “died very swiftly from her injury”.

The teenager denies charges of murder and manslaughter and the trial continues.