Damilola murder: Three are charged

Published on Friday 7 January 2005 00:05

THREE teenagers were last night charged with the murder of ten-year-old schoolboy Damilola Taylor, the Nigerian-born youngster who was stabbed to death four years ago.

Hassan Jihad, an unemployed 19-year-old, from Peckham, south London, and two brothers aged 16 and 17, also from south London,

were expected to appear at Camberwell Green magistrates court today.

The teenagers would have been aged between 12 and 15 at the time of the attack on Damilola on 27 November, 2000, in Peckham.

Detectives studying evidence from the original inquiry arrested the youths on Wednesday after new DNA techniques gave them fresh leads.

The trio had been among more than a dozen local youngsters arrested in the months after Damilola died but they were not charged then.

Instead, four other youths, including a different pair of brothers, were charged and stood trial at the Old Bailey.

They were acquitted in a three-month trial after the key witness - a 14-year-old girl known only as "Bromley" - was labelled a fantasist by defence lawyers.

Damilola’s parents, Richard and Gloria, have been kept informed by Scotland Yard about the investigation, which has involved officers trying to break down a wall of silence which they originally met in Peckham.