Damilola Taylor's father: Youth violence is now normalised in society

Richard Taylor's son Damilola died after being stabbed in Peckham
Evening Standard/Alex Lentati
WEST END FINAL

Get our award-winning daily news email featuring exclusive stories, opinion and expert analysis

I would like to be emailed about offers, event and updates from Evening Standard. Read our privacy notice.

The father of Damilola Taylor today warned society has become “normalised” to youth violence.

Richard Taylor, 71 spoke after an event last night marking the 19th anniversary of his 10-year-old son’s death in Peckham.

He told the Standard: “It still pains me today as much as it did at the time. Something has gone badly wrong and I believe that only as a society can we put it right. We can start by challenging each other to be more caring. It is not for me to answer questions about how violence became so normalised for the whole of society.”

Amid rising knife crime fuelled by drugs, 25 teenagers have been killed this year in the capital, 23 of whom were stabbed to death.

Damilola Taylor was stabbed to death in Peckham in 2000 aged 10

Mr Taylor added had Damilola fulfilled his dream of becoming a doctor “he would now be one of the heroic NHS staff tasked with trying to save young people with stab wounds”.

“Take a second to consider how uncaring and violent society has become,” he said. “How is it that there are now hundreds of families like mine that have lost children to acts of violence?” Damilola bled to death in a stairwell on a Peckham estate in 2000 after being stabbed in the leg with a broken bottle. Two brothers, 12 and 13 at the time of Damilola’s death, got eight years for his manslaughter in 2006.

Mr Taylor and his family gathered yesterday at the cemetery where Damilola and his mother Gloria, who died in 2008, are buried.

Yesterday afternoon he joined fellow anti-knife campaigners who met at The Ritzy cinema in Brixton to launch a series of events marking next year’s 20th anniversary. Mr Taylor said he was impressed by the work of Lib Peck who runs London’s Violence Reduction Unit which has adopted a public health approach, backed by the Standard, to eliminate knife crime.

He said: “Investment in violence prevention is absolutely the way forward to guarantee a generational change.

“I want 2020 to be seen as a year of hope for all those that care for the well-being, safety and development of young people.”

Listen to Anthony France in the below episode of The Leader:

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in