Body found in Thames confirmed to be Harvey Parker, missing 20-year-old Chineke! musician

7 January 2022, 10:47

Harvey Parker’s body has been found, after the music student went missing from a nightclub in Charing Cross London in December.

Police searching for Harvey Parker, a 20-year-old music student at the University of York, have recovered his body from the River Thames.

Inner West London Coroner’s Court confirmed the identity of the body on Thursday. Police have said his death is being treated as unexplained.

Parker was last seen alive leaving London nightclub, Heaven, near Charing Cross at 2.15am on 17 December 2021.

The student was a member of the Chineke! Junior Orchestra, and a talented flautist and oboist who studied on the Junior Royal Academy of Music course prior to studying an undergraduate degree in music at University of York.

Chi-chi Nwanoku OBE, artistic director of Chineke!, posted on Twitter after the latest development saying, “With the heaviest heart we have to say goodbye to a beautiful [Chineke!] musician”. Nwanoku then shared a JustGiving page created by ‘Harvey’s Friends and Family’ to raise £10,000 “for people like Harvey”.

The page already has over £54,000 in donations.

Nwanoku first met Parker when he wrote to her asking to audition for the Chineke! Junior Orchestra when he was a teenager.

In an interview with The Independent, Nwanoku recalled, “I first came across [Parker] when he wrote to me asking to do an audition at around the age of 14/15.

“I think he was the first and only Chineke! Junior auditionee to arrive on their own. He had come all the way from South East London to West London as a young teenager so I immediately thought that he was of independent spirit.”

Parker also worked as an intern for the orchestra, helping out across communications and management for the arts organisation.

Nwanoku described Parker as “one of the most outstanding of all our interns”.