Damilola Taylor’s killer freed from prison

ONE of the killers of schoolboy Damilola Taylor has been freed from prison for the fourth time although prison bosses admit he still shows no remorse.

Ricky Preddie, 25, has had early release three times since 2010 but on each occasion breached parole and was returned to jail.

The jail chiefs were forced to free him when the eight-year sentence he and brother Danny, 24, received for stabbing Damilola, 10, expired.

A spokesman for Damilola’s dad Richard, 64, called for a public inquiry into how the justice system has spent an estimated £22million on the Preddie case to no effect.

Gary Trowsdale, of the Damilola Taylor Trust, said: “Millions were spent on police investigations, Old Bailey trials and keeping the Preddies in jail. Yet they remain unreformed and show no remorse.”

Police in South London are on alert for Ricky’s imminent release. Danny was freed in 2011.

Taylor was stabbed with a broken bottle as he walked home from a library in Peckham, South East London, in 2000.

After the incident, he staggered 100 yards with blood pouring from the wound in his leg before collapsing in a stairwell near his home on a rundown council setate

In the aftermath of the incident, Mark Parsons, the headmaster of Oliver Goldsmith Primary School where Damilola was a pupil, said he was “deeply shocked” by Damilola’s death. But he denied children at the school had anything to do with the killing.

Following arrests made by the Police, four youths were eventually tried and acquitted of Damilola’s murder in 2002.

Three other youths were cleared of murder after a second trial at the Old Bailey in 2006. One was cleared on all charges but the jury failed to reach a verdict on a charge of manslaughter against the other two, brothers Danny and Rickie Preddie, then aged 18 and 19.

However, after a 33-day re-trial the brothers were convicted and in October 2006 they were sentenced to eight years’ youth custody for the manslaughter of Damilola.

Two inquiries set up to learn lessons from the case were published in December 2002.

They were critical of the way the Metropolitan Police dealt with the case, in particular the handling of a 14-year-old witness known to the court as “Bromley”.

Her crucial evidence was thrown out of court because she had lied.

The reports did, however, say the police had been right to prosecute the four defendants.

Richard and Gloria Taylor, Damilola’s parents were awarded £11,000 compensation for the death of their son, an amount which victim support groups condemned as “derisory”.

The Taylors continue to run the Damilola Taylor Trust, set up in their son’s memory to help disadvantaged young people.