Richard Taylor, who has died aged 75 after suffering from prostate cancer, spent more than two decades ensuring that something positive could emerge from the fatal stabbing of his 10-year-old son Damilola.
When visiting the stairwell on an estate in Peckham, south London, where Damilola was stabbed in the leg with a broken bottle and left to bleed to death in November 2000, Taylor visibly shook with grief.
Over the following years, it was the continuing power of that loss which drove Taylor and his wife, Gloria, to work with detectives to bring Damilola’s young killers to justice, during police investigations stretching over six years, and three crown court trials. But for Taylor, it was never just about finding those responsible for taking the life of his child.
Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Taylor travelled to Britain for his studies at Harrow Polytechnic and married his girlfriend Gloria Fayemi in Kensington in 1977, settling in Uxbridge, where their children Gbemi and Tunde were born, before returning to Lagos in 1982, where he worked for the defence ministry. Damilola, the Taylors’ third child, was born there in 1989.
In 2000 Damilola flew to London with his mother and siblings, to seek treatment for his sister Gbemi’s severe epilepsy, while Richard stayed working in Abuja.
It was as he walked home from an after-school computer class at Peckham library that Damilola was accosted by two children, and slashed in the thigh with a broken bottle, severing his femoral artery.
Thrust into the media spotlight, after the killing, Taylor exhibited determination, dignity and grace in helping the police in appeals to find his son’s killer. Moreover, his efforts helped shine a light on the impoverishment, disadvantage and fear that drove many young people into the grip of knife crime in inner-city areas like south London.
There was no barrier of politics, class, wealth or celebrity that his charm, humanity and sense of humour could not breach. In the years after his son’s murder, Taylor shook the hands of royalty, prime ministers, senior civil servants, police chiefs, footballers and film stars in his quest to give young people the hope and support needed to live lives without violence.
With the support of the footballer Rio Ferdinand, who had grown up in Peckham, Taylor formed the Damilola Taylor Trust a year after his son’s death. In a tribute to his son’s dream of becoming a doctor, the trust offered medical scholarships for students from poor backgrounds and also went on to offer projects to help young people at risk of gang and knife crime. In 2002 the pair started the Damilola Taylor Centre, providing sports and community facilities.
Early on the trust formed a partnership with King’s College London, which led to the opening of the Damilola Taylor Room, to provide a study area for medical students from deprived areas of London.
With Ferdinand, Taylor launched a campaign for young people, Respect Your Life Not a Knife, in 2006, with the support of the London mayor Ken Livingstone, the home secretary John Reid and the Metropolitan police commissioner Sir Ian Blair.
Gloria died in 2008, but Taylor continued his passionate mission to provide support for disadvantaged young people through mentoring and youth services in London.
Taking part in the people’s march against knife crime later in 2008, Taylor was a focal point for all those families who had lost relatives to knife violence. Brooke Kinsella, whose brother Ben was fatally stabbed in June 2008, said it was Taylor’s courage in the face of unimaginable grief that was her inspiration. “I’ll never forget the powerful moment during the peace march when, walking from opposite ends of London, our paths crossed in Piccadilly. We instinctively embraced; that single moment symbolised the unyielding solidarity of our movement and our shared mission to prevent violence.”
In 2009, Taylor was appointed by Gordon Brown, the prime minister, as a special envoy on youth violence and knife crime, while the Damilola Taylor Trust launched the Spirit of London awards, known as the youth Oscars, to celebrate the talents of young people.
Twenty years on from his son’s death, Taylor’s commitment and tireless belief in supporting young people led to the creation of the Hope Collective. At a time when youth services had been devastated by more than a decade of government austerity policies, the collective was formed to create a network of communities across Britain, to give young people a powerful voice, and to influence policy-making to find solutions to knife crime.
Imagining his son as a 20-year-old, Taylor said his memories of Damilola were still vivid and the pain was still raw. But the trust, he said, would shine a light for others on the kind of positive young person his son was becoming before his life was taken. “This is how I would like him to be remembered,” he said. “As our boy of hope.”
In 2011 he was made OBE for his efforts to tackle violent crime.
Harriet Harman, the veteran Labour MP for Peckham and Camberwell, said Taylor had never stopped fighting for other children to have the chances that Damilola was never able to see.
Taylor is survived by Tunde and Gbemi, and by another daughter, Florence.
• Richard Adeyemi Taylor, civil servant and campaigner, born 28 October 1948; died 23 March 2024
