Damilola Taylor: The Untold Story has left viewers in tears, with one chilling revelation about the schoolboy’s final moments proving particularly difficult to watch.
Damilola was only 10 when someone attacked him as he walked home from Peckham Library in London in November 2000.
His attacker used a broken bottle to stab him behind the knee, severing a major artery.
The new BBC documentary hears from Damilola’s heartbroken brother, his friends, police officers involved in the case and the caretaker who found him.
Their accounts paint a devastating picture of what happened to the youngster. But one detail about his death, which many viewers may not know, has left those watching the documentary struggling to process what they have heard.
Damilola Taylor: The Untold Truth documentary on BBC iPlayer
Damilola Taylor: The Untold Story revisits the case 26 years after his death. The documentary begins with his brother Tunde Taylor reflecting on their family life in Peckham.
Tunde was 20 when his younger brother died. The pair had arrived in England from Lagos with their mother and sister only months earlier, while their father stayed behind in Nigeria to work for the Ministry of Defence.
Speaking about Damilola, Tunde remembers a happy child who was simply enjoying life.
“He was just a carefree little boy. Happy and enjoying life,” he says.
But the documentary also explores the bullying Damilola endured. His best friend John Boyega and older sister Grace recall how other children targeted him because of his Nigerian accent.
Grace explains that it “wasn’t cool to be from Nigeria during that time”.
The documentary also describes the two Jamaican brothers responsible as being “part of the most notorious gang on the estate”. They would reportedly wait outside Damilola’s primary school to “rough him up”.
On the day of the killing, John and Grace had visited Peckham Library with Damilola. Grace offered to walk him home, but he reassured her that he could manage alone.
It was a decision that would have devastating consequences. Shortly afterwards, a caretaker known only as Bill discovered Damilola in a stairwell on his council estate.
Bill had followed a trail of blood up the stairs before finding the injured schoolboy.
Recalling the moment, he says: “I looked and I saw this little boy. And I knew he was hurt. I grabbed him and put him in my arms. I could see he wasn’t okay.”
Bill’s account becomes even more heartbreaking as he describes trying to hold Damilola while the youngster struggled to breathe.
“He was dying in my arms,” he remembers, fighting back tears.
Viewers sob over harrowing ‘marble’ detail
James Greenhill, a Metropolitan Police officer, was among the first to reach Damilola. He describes the desperate attempts to save the boy’s life, including performing CPR and mouth to mouth resuscitation.
However, it was what investigators discovered afterwards that left him horrified.
At the scene, PC Greenhill initially thought Damilola had swallowed his tongue. He tried to breathe into his mouth, but the boy’s chest would not rise.
He moved Damilola’s tongue to one side and continued trying to help. Even then, he could get only a small amount of air into his lungs.
The officer later learned that a marble had been lodged in the schoolboy’s throat.
“During the post mortem we noticed a marble had been lodged in Damilola’s throat. My initial reaction was just complete shock. I had my fingers in his mouth, could I have pushed it down further.
“Somebody had gone to the appalling lengths of not only stabbing someone but putting a marble into his throat.”
‘Pure evil’
The revelation has prompted an emotional response from viewers, many of whom have taken to Facebook to share their reaction to the documentary.
One viewer admitted they had been crying throughout, writing: “I cried throughout this documentary. It was heartfelt and very powerful. I felt very sorry for the brother who lived with blame. Also the extra information about the marble was completely harrowing.”
Another was particularly disturbed by the detail, commenting: “I sobbed watching the new documentary. What about the marble that was found down his throat??”
A third simply described the killing as “pure evil”.
One more viewer expressed their horror at the circumstances surrounding the officer’s attempts to save Damilola.
“They put a marble in his mouth too which he swallowed so CPR wouldn’t have worked?! Sick!” they wrote.
Ricky and Danny Preddie were eventually found guilty of Damilola’s manslaughter. The brothers, who were just 12 and 13 when they killed him, received eight year sentences in a young offenders institution.
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