Damilola Taylor (7 December 1989 – 27 November 2000) was a ten-year-old Nigerian schoolboy who died in England in what became one of the country’s most high-profile killings. Several young boys were cleared of murder charges after a lengthy trial, and later two brothers were convicted of manslaughter. Damilola Taylor was born in Lagos, Nigeria, to Richard and Gloria Taylor (died 8 April 2008). He attended Wisdom Montessori School, Ikosi, Ketu, Lagos, before he traveled to the United Kingdom in August 2000 with his family to allow his sister Gbemi[2] to seek treatment for epilepsy. Damilola, with his family, moved into the North Peckham estate and he began to attend the local school. Taylor was doing well at school. Teachers were impressed by his ability and his enthusiasm. Mr. Parsons said: “He was slowly making friends and settling into the school. He was a boisterous, fun, smiling boy. If I think about him I think of him smiling.” But there were signs that the new boy was being bullied. On Friday, three days before his death, he returned home to tell his mother he was being called names and had been beaten up. Mrs. Taylor was so concerned that at the first opportunity, on Monday morning, she escorted her son to school to talk to Mr. Parsons. She said: “They were calling him names and saying things like, ‘…fuck your mother’. He asked me, ‘Mum, what is the meaning of gay?’ These boys were calling him gay and I said, ‘Do not listen to them’. I said, ‘Go and report it to the school teacher’, and when he came home he said he reported it but the teacher did not know who was telling the truth.”

On 27 November 2000, Damilola Taylor set off from Peckham Library at 4:51 pm to make his way home. He was captured on CCTV as he walked away. On approaching the North Peckham Estate he received a gash to his left thigh. Running to a stairwell, he collapsed and bled to near death in the space of approximately 30 minutes. He was still alive in an ambulance on his way to hospital. Different forensic scientists have presented different events that could have given Taylor his fatal wounds. The theory accepted by the Metropolitan Police is that he was attacked and fell on a broken bottle, later bleeding to death. He died 10 days before his 11th birthday.