Pair 'giggled about Damilola'

Two brothers giggled and smiled as they admitted they had stabbed 10-year-old Damilola Taylor "for a laugh and for something to do," the Old Bailey heard today.

The pair, then aged 15, allegedly told a fellow teenage inmate at Feltham Young Offender Institute when they were in custody on other unrelated charges in February last year, the court was told.

A 17-year-old witness told the jury he had spoken in the juvenile prison's induction room to one brother while the other one listened and smiled.

"We were talking about what offences we were involved in and how long we had got.

"They asked me what I was in for. I asked them and they said murder. I asked who and they said some kid in Peckham," he said.

"They admitted murdering a kid. They knew the name but said they didn't know him. I asked what they had done to murder him and they admitted stabbing him in the leg and leaving him to bleed.

"While one was saying that the other one was smiling at his brother. The same one said he had done it for a laugh and for something to do. They said they had left him at the bottom of the stairs in an alleyway." The witness also said the brothers were "laughing and giggling".

The brothers, now 16, and a 15-year-old deny murder, manslaughter and assault with intent to rob. The trial continues.