What kind of country is this?
Published in: Daily Mail
The despairing words of Damilola Taylor's father said it all. As the Old Bailey jury found the youths accused of killing his son not guilty of murder and then failed to agree on whether they were guilty of manslaughter, he put his head in his hands and said to his wife, 'This is rubbish. This is a mess. What kind of a country is this?'
One might well ask. The Taylors have now been put through the harrowing ordeal of enduring not one but two trials in the forlorn hope of seeing justice finally done for their slain son -- only to find both trials collapsing in an almost unbelievable display of serial incompetence in a saga which has gone on for six years and still hasn't been brought to a conclusion.
Ten year-old Damilola was killed in a grubby stairwell on the North Peckham estate in south London in November 2000. The attempt to bring his killers to justice has already cost the taxpayer
