Police yesterday issued CCTV footage of Damilola Taylor just an hour before he was murdered. The video shows the 10-year-old making his way to an after-school computer class at the library in Cronin Street, Peckham, south-east London.
The footage begins at 3.44 p.m. last Monday week. Just over an hour later police found Damilola bleeding to death in the stairwell of West Hordle Promenade, a short distance from his home.
At a Scotland Yard press briefing, Det Supt David Dillnutt said: "When he arrived at the library he was on his own but there were a number of people in the area around the library and the square and the sports centre.
"We know he left the library at 4.25 p.m. and walked across the square and across the front of the sports centre, but where did he go from there? I would ask any children and adults, did they see Damilola? Did they see him talk to anyone? Did they see anyone attacking him?"
Mr Dillnutt said speculation about the motives for the attack, including one theory that Damilola had been caught up in turf war between rival young crack-cocaine dealers, was "less than helpful".
He added: "We are keeping an open mind. If people have any information then they should come forward."
He said detectives were still keen to interview a group of six to 10 boys aged about 14 who were seen in the square near the library as Damilola left.
Video footage of him leaving the building was not of sufficient quality to allow identification of the youths. Mr Dillnutt said the investigation was proving difficult because the children who had come forward often found it difficult to remember events clearly.
Meanwhile, leaders of Britain's African community today played down reports of tensions between Africans and Afro-Caribbeans in Peckham.
After a minute's silence for Damilola Taylor, Dr Kabineh Koroma, chairman of African Community umbrella group Confederation of African Communities Organisations, founded on Saturday, said: "Any attempt to focus on community tensions is going to divert our limited energies and resources from the objectives.
"We recognise we are part of the British complex culture and recognise we are all under the same umbrella. We also know our part of the umbrella has been leaking for a very long time."