Richard Taylor, knife crime campaigner, 1948-2024

Richard Taylor never intended to have a public profile. It was the murder of Damilola that handed him one. In the wake of his 10-year-old son’s killing — which shocked a Britain only months into the new, multicultural millennium — Taylor channelled dignity, fortitude and hope. 

Alongside his wife Gloria, Richard, who has died of prostate cancer at the age of 75, fought for justice for Damilola. Even before a measure of it was secured, he committed himself to ending knife crime and helping disadvantaged young people. “I still break down, I still feel the pain,” Taylor told the BBC four years ago. “This child was a gift. It’s something that will remain in my life until I die.”

Born into a middle-class family in Lagos, Richard Adeyemi Taylor came to Britain to study public administration at a technical college. On graduating in 1977, he married Gloria and they settled in Uxbridge, west London. The couple welcomed two children before returning to Nigeria so Richard could take a job at the Ministry of Defence. In the summer of 2000, Gloria, Gbemi, Tunde and Damilola, born in Nigeria, travelled to London in order for Gbemi to receive better care for her severe epilepsy. 

Mother and children settled in Peckham, then one of the capital’s most deprived and crime-heavy districts. Damilola — who dreamt of studying medicine and finding a cure for his elder sister’s condition — made a good start at Oliver Goldsmith primary school, despite bullying and racism. On the cold, wet afternoon of November 27 2000, he was stabbed with a broken bottle on the way home from a computer class at the library, and left to die in the stairwell of a block of flats.  

The murder of Damilola — whose warm smile was soon splashed across newspaper front pages — sparked a national outcry about conditions on the North Peckham Estate and youth violence. Tony Blair, then prime minister, vowed to “do everything we possibly can to bring the killers to justice”. The estate was razed not long afterwards, but solving the crime proved painful. 

The Metropolitan police — still reeling from the botched investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence seven miles away in 1993 — struggled to persuade fearful locals to speak. An independent review chaired by John Sentamu, then bishop of Birmingham, found the redeployment of detectives after murder charges were brought and disclosure rules had affected the preparation and prosecution of a court case that collapsed in 2002.

Two trials and four years later, two brothers were convicted of Damilola’s manslaughter on the basis of new DNA evidence, after being acquitted months earlier. They were 12 and 13 at the time of the crime. “No verdict can ever return our son to us,” Taylor said outside the Old Bailey. “We pray that his gentle soul may now rest in peace.”

Although they endured a long wait for justice, Richard and Gloria wasted no time in creating something positive out of their loss. In May 2001 the Damilola Taylor Trust was set up to provide “a legacy of hope and opportunity for disadvantaged and underprivileged young people”. Richard, who is survived by Tunde, Gbemi and a second daughter, Florence, was hit hard by Gloria’s sudden death in 2008. But he continued their work, organising with families who had lost loved ones in similar circumstances, giving talks in schools and impressing his message on politicians, police chiefs and Premier League footballers.

Gordon Brown, who as prime minister appointed Taylor a special envoy on youth violence and knife crime, praised a “very effective and principled campaigner” on X. He told the Financial Times that Taylor’s “instinctive sense of what was just and fair always stood out”. 

Awarded an OBE in the 2012 New Year honours, Taylor retired from campaigning in 2020. Two decades, he said, had “taken a toll”. But he continued to chair the charity set up in honour of his “boy of hope” and marked the anniversary that year by launching the Hope Collective, a cross-sector alliance to address poverty and discrimination. 

Despite his good work, time was no salve for Taylor. He maintained he could “never forgive” his son’s killers. Peckham had changed “for good”, but going there remained “a big problem for me to bear”. Police-recorded knife crimes in London have risen each year since the pandemic, although they remain below a peak of more than 15,600 in 2019-20. Nevertheless, Taylor did not waver in his belief in the potential of young people, urging them last year not “to despair. There is so much ahead.” 

As for himself, aware his cancer was terminal Taylor had doubts about what would come next, arguing that “when we die, we die”. Yet chinks of light remained. “I hope there is a place for us to reunite,” he said. “I want to see if a heaven does really exist so I can be reunited with Gloria and Damilola and we can stay together forever.”