Finbar Sullivan pictured with his father Christopher

THE  father of a 21-year-old man killed on Primrose Hill has blamed the police and government for failing to keep young people safe on London’s streets, and has hit back at “foul” headlines sensationalising his son’s murder.

Filmmaker Finbar Sullivan was trying out his new camera with friends in the sunny park when he was fatally stabbed last Tuesday evening. In the days since this tragedy, some newspapers have mapped Finbar’s murder as a sign of London’s lawlessness, or linked it to violence in the drill music scene because he had made a few videos for rap artists.

Other news websites have been forced to turn off comments on their social media posts about the murder, after a slew of racist and divisive responses about the ethnicity of the suspects.

But Finbar’s father Chris Sullivan said he will not let his son’s name be used to fuel hateful rhetoric – instead, he told the New Journal this week, Finbar will always be a “beacon of peace and love”, as he was in life.

“The hate should not be directed at minorities. It’s the government and the Met Police, they’re the ones to blame, not immigrants, not black kids,” said Mr Sullivan, 65. “If I hear anything to the contrary I’m going to really go to town with them, because Fin above all was proud to be a Londoner, proud of this multiracial, wonderful place we are.

“It doesn’t matter where [Finbar’s killer] comes from, his colour, race, creed. It’s nothing to do with that. It’s a class thing, and it’s been created by the government.”

Tributes at the railings of the park in Primrose Hill

Mr Sullivan added: “We have to look after our teenagers, they’ve just been thrown on the garbage heap. They can’t get houses, they can’t get work, can’t go to university, they’ve got no aspirations, and we’ve got a government that sanctions the killing of thousands and thousands of children [in Palestine].

“So how on earth can politicians be surprised by this? What type of message do they think that’s broadcasting to young people? It says life doesn’t mean anything, particularly if you’re not white. I think that’s what we have here. “So I hope Finbar is going to be a clarion call for all of us who can see the wood from the trees. That’s what I’m going to make it my job to do now.”

Mr Sullivan is an artist, writer and DJ who founded Soho’s famous Wag Club in 1982 and more recently set up Artists for Gaza, fundraising concerts featuring performers like Paul Weller and Suggs from Madness. The next event, expected in May, will be in Finbar’s memory.

Mr Sullivan has previously written articles about knife crime, as well as producing a documentary series called Gangs of Britain. He told the New Journal how sensationalist headlines make young people feel they have to carry a knife because everyone else is, while he blamed past Conservative government cuts to youth services for leaving them with nowhere safe to go.

He said: “I really blame the media for a lot of what’s happened to this country. If these revolting newspapers keep on saying ‘knife crime, knife crime, knife crime’, kids are going to carry knives. Imagine what it’s like when you’re 20 and you can’t walk down the street without looking over your shoulder.

“They’re not safe on the street no matter where they go – even in Primrose Hill, the bastion of British middle classness, good lord.”

Finbar as a young boy with his father 

Finbar Sullivan with his parents, Leah Seresin and Christopher Sullivan

He added: “The worst thing was somebody else was stabbed there a few years ago and they hadn’t installed CCTV and they didn’t have any security. “Why are they still arresting pensioners peacefully protesting a genocide? Why aren’t those policemen on the streets of Camden? “If there had been a policeman doing the rounds this wouldn’t have happened.”

The case on the hill he was referring to was the death of 16-year-old Harry Pitman, who was fatally stabbed in the park on New Year’s Eve in 2023.

Finbar was born in Paddington and attended Acland Burghley in Tufnell Park. For the past few years he had been living with his father in Maida Vale. Known to friends as Sully, he made videos for his father’s Artists for Gaza initiative, for designers like Vivienne Westwood’s son Joe Corré, and for drill music artists.

His filmmaking started with trainer reviews on YouTube when he was around 11 years old, and he later decided to pursue it as a career, following in the footsteps of his grandfather Michael Seresin, a cinemato-grapher known for blockbusters like Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Mr Sullivan told how his son was very political, never leaving home without his Palestine badge.

“He cared about people – our family motto was do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and that politeness costs nothing,” he said. “He followed that to a tee, right to the end. He was a peace warrior, Fin was – he just didn’t understand racism, he didn’t understand war, he didn’t understand gang people killing each other. He was a leader, he was a beacon. He had a brain, a future.”

RIP Sully – friends used to call the filmmaker ‘Sully’

Finbar and his friends were like a “rainbow coalition” of different backgrounds, his father added, and they always hung out at his flat in Maida Vale because they knew it was a safe place. This is something he only realised through speaking to Finbar’s friends since his death, and hearing their stories of loved ones injured or killed by stabbings in Camden.

“I asked them the question – ‘are you scared to go out?’ And the overwhelming answer was yes,” he said.

Mr Sullivan paid tribute to his son at a vigil last Sunday night, where more than 100 people met on the edge of Primrose Hill to lay flowers and play music.

He read aloud the lyrics to Ken Boothe’s song, Everything I Own, while somebody else played Bob Marley’s One Love. “It made me remember when he loved Bob Marley and he said, ‘have you heard this song, dad?’ Which made me laugh. He was so sweet,” said Mr Sullivan.

At home, Finbar is everywhere he looks – his face scrubs still in the bathroom, his socks in the laundry. “I can’t really get to grips with it at all. It’s like if I’d lost both my legs, but I’d prefer that. I know what grief is about, I know what death is about, but this is on a whole other level,” Mr Sullivan said.

Some £25,000 have been raised for Finbar’s family since his murder. His father added: “I want to form a charity for all the people like me who have been through this, who don’t have rich friends like I have who will give me money. So they could just get five grand to keep them going.”

Three men –Oliuwadamilola Ogunyankinnu, 27; Alexis Bidace, 25; and Ernest Boateng, 25, have been charged with murder. Khalid Abdulqadir, 18, is charged with grievous bodily harm with intent, violent disorder and possession of a knife. Anyone with information can contact police on 101.