KILLER BROTHERS
Where are Damilola Taylor’s killers Danny and Ricky Preddie now?
THEY were the young killers who cruelly stabbed ten-year-old Damilola Taylor to death as he walked home from computer club in Peckham.
Danny and Ricky Preddie were aged just 12 and 13 when they attacked Damilola two decades ago, in 2000.
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Who are Danny and Ricky Preddie?
Brothers Danny and Ricky Preddie were members of a gang known as the Young Peckham Boys and by aged 12 and 13, were terrorising the streets of south London.
Danny was rarely out of supervision or detention and at the time of Damilola's killing, should have been subject to a 24-hour curfew in a social services home.
Four weeks after the killing, Danny was placed under a supervision order for an assault with intent to rob and two cases of racially aggravated assault. He breached the order.
Ricky, 13 at the time of the killing, also had a history of violence and theft.
He was also supposed to have been under supervision when the schoolboy was killed.
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Where are they now?
Danny was let out of prison in 2011 after being given early release for serving five years of his eight year sentence.
His brother was released the year before on parole just four years after the eight-year sentence was handed down.
He was sent back to prison in March 2011 after visiting Peckham from his West London bail hostel in breach of his licence conditions.
While inside, he beat up another prisoner but a Parole Board hearing on December 23, 2011, decided he should be released on January 25, 2012.
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Just 16 days later, he was jailed again for violating his parole when he visited areas he was banned from and visiting friends from his old gang.
In November 2019, Ricky was driving through Wembley when police asked him to pull over.
After stopping, he then reversed into the police vehicle and injured a female officer inside - then drove away.
He was later caught by police and has been sentenced to four years in prison and a 12-year driving ban, effective from when he's released from jail.
How did Damilola Taylor die?
Harrowing CCTV footage from the night the ten-year-old died - November 27, 2000 - shows him leaving Peckham Library at 4.51pm.
Damilola looked happy as he skipped home with a smile on his face - just 15 minutes later he was bleeding to death in a filthy stairwell.
The schoolboy was approaching the North Peckham Estate when he was stabbed in the leg with a piece of broken glass.
He ran to a concrete stairwell where he collapsed and was dead within 30 minutes.
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Damilola was just ten days away from celebrating his 11th birthday.
Star Wars actor John Boyega and his sister Grace were some of the last people to be spotted on the CCTV footage with Damilola, while escorting him part of the way home.
The three were friends and the Boyegas helped babysit him.
Rio Ferdinand, who grew up on the estate in Peckham where Damilola was killed, made a direct appeal to children for information about the youngster's death.
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What happened at the trial for his killing?
After Damilola's death, it took six years and three trials to identify and convict his killers.
In 2002, four boys went on trial at the Old Bailey charged with Damilola's murder.
But two of the boys were found not guilty and the other two were acquitted when it was ruled that a 14-year-old girl, who was the prosecution's key witness, was unreliable.
Speaking outside the Old Bailey after the case, the boy's parents, Richard and Gloria Taylor vowed to continue fighting for justice.
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more news
Ricky was charged with his younger brother Danny in 2005 when forensic evidence, missed at the time, revealed tiny blood spots and fibres.
The Preddie brothers were eventually convicted of manslaughter in 2006.
They were sentenced to eight years in youth custody but released in 2011 and 2010.
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