John Boyega Revisits the Final Hours of Damilola Taylor in The Untold Story

"I will travel far and wide to choose my destiny to remould the world, I know it is my destiny to remould the world which I hope to achieve in my lifetime"

These were the extraordinary words written by Damilola Taylor, a 10-year-old boy whose dreams stretched far beyond the Peckham estate where his young life would tragically end.

Twenty-six years after his death shook Britain, Damilola is once again at the centre of a national conversation — but this time, the story is being told through the people who knew the boy behind the famous school photograph.

In the new BBC documentary Damilola: The Untold Story, British-Nigerian actor John Boyega reveals for the first time his own deeply personal connection to the tragedy: he was just eight years old and one of the last people to see Damilola alive.

Produced by Optomen Television and directed by Alex Thomas, the documentary premieres on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer on Monday, 5 October 2026 at 9pm.

Damilola Olufemi Taylor had moved from Nigeria to Britain only months before his death. Bright, ambitious and hopeful about his future, he dreamed of becoming a doctor.

On 27 November 2000, after spending time at Peckham Library, Damilola was making his way home when he was attacked. He suffered a fatal wound to his thigh from broken glass and was later discovered bleeding heavily in a stairwell on the North Peckham Estate, just metres from his home.

His death became one of Britain's most high-profile criminal cases and triggered years of investigations, failed prosecutions and public scrutiny. Eventually, in 2006, brothers Ricky and Danny Preddie were convicted of Damilola's manslaughter.

But The Untold Story isn't simply another reconstruction of the crime.

Instead, it attempts to return Damilola's story to the children who actually lived it.

Boyega is joined by his sister Grace, Damilola's brother Tunde Taylor, childhood friends and former Metropolitan Police superintendent Dr Leroy Logan as they revisit Peckham at the turn of the millennium — an environment shaped by bullying, fear and an evolving culture of youth violence.

For Boyega, the documentary is intensely personal.

He and Grace had been with Damilola shortly before his death. Grace had been in Damilola's class and was asked to help him settle into school after his arrival from Nigeria. The siblings walked part of the journey home with him on the evening he died.

Boyega has now spoken about the terror that followed — including the childhood fear that what happened to Damilola could happen to him too.

That fear would ultimately shape his own sense of urgency about his future. Soon afterwards, Boyega pursued acting with extraordinary determination, eventually moving from Theatre Peckham to international stardom through Attack the Block, Star Wars, Small Axe and The Woman King.

The documentary also revisits the failures and eventual breakthroughs of the investigation, including forensic evidence that was initially missed but later helped secure the convictions of the Preddie brothers.

Yet perhaps its most important achievement is simpler: it allows Damilola to exist as something more than a victim.

Through his writings, the memories of his friends and the testimony of those who knew him, we meet a Nigerian boy who had crossed continents carrying enormous dreams for his future.

A boy who believed he had time.

A boy who wrote about travelling the world, choosing his destiny and changing it.

Twenty-six years later, Damilola: The Untold Story asks Britain to remember not only how Damilola Taylor died, but who he might have become.