UK News 30-11-2000 Clues Found In Damilola Murder Case who: Foreign Secretary Jack Straw what: Visits inner-city estate where ten-year-old was killed where: PECKHAM - SE15 when: Today snippet: "A terrible place to die" laments The Independent; "Sick Britain" spits The Express as the British papers ponder the social conditions in which ten-year-old Damilola Taylor met his death by stabbing in a Peckham street on Monday. "More than £250m will eventually be spent converting the area`s 3,000 flats into 2,000 low-rise houses with neat gardens," writes Kim Sengupta in The Independent about the "sink estate" being visited by home secretary Jack Straw today. "But that is in the future. In the meantime, what has been left behind is an urban sprawl reeking of neglect." Damilola came from a respectable family in Nigeria, where his father was a civil servant, says The Guardian. He saved for two years for the move to London because his daughter needed specialist medical treatment at King`s College hospital. "Before my daughter had this treatment in London she was so ill she couldn`t even walk," said Damilola`s mother Gloria Taylor yesterday. "Now she is much better. But I wish we had never come. My son is dead and I am bitter". A broken bottle and a kitchen knife found near the scene are being examined by Scotland Yard, reports The Evening Standard. Detective Superintendent David Dillnutt, promising to leave "no stone unturned", moved to quash speculation that the killing was the result of bullying and suggested that it may have been caused by "children messing about". [... more]

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