20 years after Damilola Taylor’s killing

Photo by: Noel Foster | Creative Commons

Schoolboy Damilola Taylor was killed in Peckham twenty years ago. A gang-related crime that took six years and three trials for brothers Ricky and Danny Preddie to be convicted of manslaughter in 2006. 

This year has been challenging with a pandemic changing our way of living, the Black Lives Matter movement stronger and more present than ever before. 

  • Read more about Black Lives Matter here
  • Read more about the Black lives lost this past year here

On Friday 27 November, we remember the young schoolboy Damilola Taylor who was killed on his way back home from the library after school. 

Taylor had only been in the UK for four months before he died after his family had decided to move from Nigeria to London in 2000. 

The Metropolitan Police tweeted a video of AC Nick Ephgrave reflecting on the murder and how it triggered a re-examination of their “approach to youth violence.”

What happened?

The young boy was stabbed in the leg and left to die in a stairwell in Peckham, South London as he was on his way back home on 27 November 2000. 

He was stabbed by the Preddies, two brothers aged 12 and 13 at the time. They used a broken beer bottle to stab Taylor. 

 

Who were the Preddies? 

They are two brothers who were part of a gang known as the Young Peckham Boys. 

Ricky, 13 and Danny, 12 at the time of the killing, it’s only six years later that they get convicted for manslaughter and were sentenced to eight years in prison. 

 

Words: Sam Tabahriti | Subbing: Monika Laimaite

Accessibility | Cookies | Terms of use and privacy