'How I found Damilola dying'

A workman told today how he came face to face with Damilola Taylor after following a trail of blood to the spot where the boy was dying.

Carpenter Guillermo Casal recalled seeing "a small wet patch which I thought was a squashed tomato" on the ground at the North Peckham estate were the 10-year-old had been stabbed by a gang of teenagers.

He added: "I saw blood on the handrail and when I got to the landing I saw a boy standing up with his shoulder to the wall. I looked at him and he looked at me, and I just ran towards the boy and almost immediately he fell to the floor."

Mr Casal paused, apologising to the court. He put his hands to his head and thumped his fist on the witness box in an attempt to regain his composure.

He went on: "I reached over to him and crouched down beside him. There was blood everywhere." He said the boy told him "I'm okay, I'm okay" but they were his final words.

Mr Casal said that he saw three black youths watching from a distance. One of them made a gesture across his leg - at the place where Damilola had been stabbed.

Mr Casal gave evidence at the Old Bailey after Damilola's mother rushed from court today, unable to watch film of her son skipping innocently to his death. Gloria Taylor was comforted as CCTV footage showed the boy playing outside a library after school. His silver jacket - which it is claimed made him a target for a gang of teenage robbers - is clearly visible. Finally he disappears out of sight of the cameras. Moments later, the prosecution alleges, he was surrounded by four members of a south London gang and stabbed in the leg with a broken bottle. A marble was put in his mouth to stifle his cries, the court was told.

Four youths, who deny murder, watched on television sets in the Old Bailey as the film was played. Two 16-year-old brothers, a 17-year-old and a 14-year-old also deny manslaughter and assault with intent to rob.

Damilola's father Richard and his brother Tunde, 22, remained in court as statements from the schoolboy's friends were read out.

One 11-year-old boy said he had earlier seen Damilola hopping along the pavement on his way to Peckham Library.

The boy said: "Damilola appeared to be mucking about, jumping and happy. As he walked along he was leaping on his left leg as if his right leg was hurting but he appeared to be just mucking about really and was okay when he came up to us at the library."

At the library Damilola helped the seven-year-old sister of one of his friends with her homework."

Reading from another boy's statement, prosecutor Mark Dennis said that after a while Damilola and a friend began playfully pushing and tripping each other up.

Later the CCTV shows Damilola disappearing out of sight of the cameras towards Blakes Road.

Nadi Anufrijeva was walking down Blakes Road minutes before Damilola was stabbed. She saw a group of youths.

She said: "I wasn't sure if there was four or five of them because there was one outside the group. They were talking loudly."

She said one boy standing apart had "an open look with big brown eyes" and made eye contact with her.

He was smaller than the other boys and was wearing a distinctive tight-fitting hat with ear flaps hanging loose.

"He was not participating in what the others were involved in."

Miss Anufrijeva was almost certain at that stage there was no broken glass on the pavement. The trial has heard that Damilola was stabbed with a beer bottle which was deliberately broken on railings nearby.

She told the court the boy standing apart was definitely black and she described the whole party as "a group of black boys" to police.

However, of the four accused, only two are black. The trial continues.