November 2000 as Damilola made his way home from an after-school club at the local library he was surrounded by a gang of youths.
They demanded his distinctive silver puffa jacket but he bravely refused to hand it over. When he did so one of them, believed to be Ricky Preddie, stabbed him in the leg with a broken beer bottle.
This was known by the gang as â??jukingâ?? and they used it as a form of punishment, maybe because it would never usually be serious enough
to cause death.
But in Damilolaâ??s case the shard of glass severed a major artery just above his knee.
After three trials and almost six years the killers of ten-year-old Damilola Taylor have finally been brought to justice.
Two brothers, Danny and Ricky Preddie, aged 18 and 19, who both have long criminal records, were found guilty at the Old Bailey today of
the manslaughter of the schoolboy who bled to death in the arms of a stranger on an estate in Peckham, south London in November 2000.
The brothers, from Peckham, were cleared in April of the 10-year-oldâ??s murder and assault with intent to rob, but a retrial was ordered because
the jury could not agree on the manslaughter charge.
They had originally been arrested a few days after Damilola was stabbed in the leg with a broken bottle near his home in Peckham.