Damilola is dad’s ‘boy of hope’ 20 years after murder
THE father of murdered Damilola Taylor wants his son to be remembered as a “boy of hope” on the 20th anniversary of his death.
Damilola, 10, was stabbed with a broken bottle by a gang of youths as he made his way home from a library on November 27, 2000.
He bled to death in a stairwell of the council estate where he lived after the unprovoked attack in Peckham, South East London.
His father Richard, 72, said: “It is hard to believe that it has been 20 years since we lost our beloved Damilola. The pain of losing our son will never go away and I would like to thank everybody for their kindness during this time.”
A campaign named Hope 2020 will include a Day of Hope on December 7, which would have been Damilola’s 31st birthday.
More than 40 young people from across the country have been selected as Hope Ambassadors in recognition of the work they do to support their local community. Richard said: “Damilola had ambition, he wanted to change the world. He was a boy of hope and our Hope 2020 legacy campaign celebrates that. It shines a light on the aspirational stories of young people, on the kind of positive young person Damilola was turning into.
“This is how I would like him to be remembered, as a boy of hope. Our boy of hope.”
Brothers Danny and Ricky Preddie, aged 12 and 13 at the time of the killing, were convicted of Damilola’s manslaughter in 2006.
TODAY, former police Superintendent Leroy Logan and actor John Boyega would both have been making their way to Southwark Cathedral for a service to celebrate the life of Damilola Taylor.
Both of their lives have been deeply affected by his senseless murder. Logan was chairman of the Met’s Black Police Association at the time, and his officers helped to bring the schoolboy’s killers to justice. Star Wars actor Boyega was one of the last people to see 10-year-old Damilola alive.
Twenty years on, as the special HOPE2020 service has been postponed due to coronavirus, yet another thread links the two men this weekend. On Sunday, the BBC will broadcast Boyega’s extraordinary performance as Logan in Sir Steve McQueen’s film Red, White and Blue.
The latest in the Oscar-winning director’s Small Axe series shows Logan facing down racism from white officers and hostility from within his own family for joining the police.
NEW SERIES Steve McQueen
On November 27, 2000, after doing homework in the library, an eightyear-old Boyega got in the lift with his older sister Grace and their footballmad friend Dami. The Boyegas offered to walk their friend home, but he said he’d be OK. His killers were waiting for him around the corner.
The following morning, as one of the first reporters to reach a bloodied stairwell on the North Peckham estate, I still remember a community’s palpable shock as police confirmed the murder victim was a 10-year-old schoolboy.
McQueen’s film ends earlier in the policeman’s career, but Logan’s life was already linked to Damilola’s by marriage. Arriving at the memorial service, to represent the BPA, he recognised Dami’s father Richard Taylor – his wife Gretl’s cousin. Asked by his superiors if he could put a team of black officers onto house-to-house enquiries to combat a wall of silence in southeast London, he knew he could make a difference. The team, which eventually became the Cultural Resource Unit, helped crack the case.
Logan’s first career was as a research scientist at London’s Royal Free, yet he was hiding a yearning to be a police officer. In 1983, his father, Kenneth, had been viciously beaten by police after disputing he had parked his lorry incorrectly. Logan’s incredible leap of faith was the belief he could change the culture of the Met from within.
His father was furious. When he wore his uniform Logan was called “traitor”, “coconut”, “Judas”. In one scene in the film he replies, “that’s Constable Judas to you”.
Then, one day, colleagues in the Met wrote the words “Dirty N*****” on his locker. An outstanding athlete and officer, Logan knew what he had to do. “I de decided I was going to show them what excellence was, was intellectually, ally, physically, spiritually, academically, operationally,” op he says. “In the end I won grudging respect.” respec
As he climbed to Superintendent, tende and as he details in his book, Closing Ranks: My Life As A Cop, Logan to took on the racists, a again and again.
“My motto too much for some colleagues
MURDERED Damilola Taylor has always been, if you stick your head in the sand long enough your butt is going to get kicked,” he says. At one point he had to fight disciplinary charges over a falsely disputed £80 bill. His lawyer was Sadiq Khan, now Mayor of London.
Logan did it all to stop “even just one unjustified beating”, a way of righting the terrible wrong done to his father.
When he was chosen to show Princess Diana round the newly opened Edmonton Police Station in 1989, it was too much for some officers.
“I’m retired now and I still get told I only got to where I am because I am black,” Logan says. “There are about 50 officers who still write about me on social media. I just stick to my purpose. That’s what I’ve
ROCKS Leroy at his wedding to Gretl, with lifelong pal, singer Leee John, left
always done.” It took an MBE from the Queen for Logan’s dad to admit he had made the right decision, but he says he always knew his dad loved him.
Throughout his life he has had two rocks, Gretl, and Leee John, a school friend who went on to form soul band Imagination. Leee’s mum worked in police liaison and Logan remembered seeing black officers in Jamaica, where he lived briefly as a child. He admired their crisp clothing. “They looked sharp, athletic, ready for action.” Even so, when his boss at the Royal Free suggested he join the police, his reply was: “Do I look like a racist?”
PAINED
Now it’s Boyega playing Logan in a crisp shirt, while Leroy, a 63-year-old grandfather, is still pained by community-police relations and the violent deaths of mainly young black men.
“The police service hasn’t helped itself in recent years,” Logan says. Met Commissioner Cressida Dick has been “an abysmal failure” and there has been “a right-wing shift” especially at street level, he says. “Policing is returning to a pre-Macpherson era,” he adds, referring to the report that followed Stephen Lawrence’s murder.
“Brexit emboldened those officers with racist views. At the end of the day, the police are a reflection of the public.”
In June, both Logan and Boyega were at the Black Lives Matter protest in Hyde Park. Logan is clearly proud of the younger man.
“As an advocate and an activist, I’m glad to see John’s shown a social conscience,” he says. “He’s seen racism, inequality, injustices the same as I have. I know he was worried it could jeopardise his career, but his appearance really energised people. He carries a lot of influence. It’s about choosing not to just point the finger – and instead asking what can we do?”
Twenty years after the murder of a schoolboy skipping home from the library, this remains Leroy Logan’s life’s work.
Hope2020.uk
Red White and Blue, Sunday, 9pm, BBC One and BBC iPlayer