Like the Old Testament God, the public was filled with a need for vengeance. But whoever murdered Damilola Taylor presumably did it by mistake - the murderers are probably horrified and terrified by what they have done. They slashed him and ran off, leaving him to hobble a few steps for help, in the sudden fountain of his own blood. If it was an act of depravity, it was the ordinary, nasty, diluted depravity of the way we live now. If it was an act of wickedness, it was wickedness that is being repeated, without the fatal consequences, each day all over the country.
Boys are always beating up other boys, everyone knows that.
This is not something set apart from us, that we can describe as evil and monstrous and unnatural, and shut away and forget about. It's with us, all around us, if only we look. It's a glimpse into the world in which we live. This other Britain is ours. Because of this, the little dead boy has become like a lightning rod for a wave of moral scrutiny.