At the Old Bailey, a mother confronts her son’s killer – and the system that failed him

To hear more about this story, listen to Francisco Garcia’s investigation on The Slow Newscast, The mother and the gangs, here.

Shortly after 6:30pm on 22 September last year, 15-year-old Daejaun Campbell was stabbed to death in Woolwich, south-east London. Three teenagers had attacked Daejaun as he walked past a residential address on Eglinton Road. It is still unclear precisely why the attack took place, though police believe he was  “g-checked” – slang for being confronted as a suspected rival gang member – before being chased by two of the teenagers, while a third stood close by. Eyewitnesses saw Daejaun try to flee before his assailants caught up with him. He was struck multiple times with a machete after a brief struggle. According to eyewitnesses, he shouted, “I’m 15, don’t let me die.”

The six-week long trial had ended in July. Nineteen-year-old Marko Balaz of Abbey Wood, south-east London, was convicted of manslaughter, while 18-year-old Imre Doue was found guilty of murder. Doue, aged 17 at the time of Daejaun’s killing, can now be named for the first time. The third teenager was acquitted, having been charged with murder. Both Doue and Balaz were well known to the authorities. Doue had previous convictions for carrying a kukri-style knife and a machete in 2021; and for affray relating to a fight in October 2023 in which a man received cuts to his face and a stab wound. Balaz also had previous convictions for carrying knives, as well as possession of cannabis.

If knife crime is on the rise in London, then Woolwich has a claim to being its current epicentre. Over the past six months, The Observer has reported extensively from a neighbourhood rocked by a series of murders involving ever younger victims and perpetrators, often featuring a scarcely comprehensible ferocity. In January, 14-year-old Kelyan Bokassa was stabbed 27 times on the top deck of the 472 bus as it travelled across Woolwich Church Street in broad daylight. His killers were just 16 at the time of sentencing in late July. And just like Balaz and Doue, Kelyan Bokassa’s killers also had previous convictions for carrying knives. Much has been made of the fact that Kelyan Bokassa and Daejaun Campbell were friends: a grim parallel in two unrelentingly grim tales of an increasingly potent inner-city gang culture and the senseless destruction that it spawns.  

The truth is that Dejaun Campbell and Kelyan Bokassa were themselves heavily embroiled in the toxic shadow-world of drugs and violence that plagues Woolwich and so much of the city. Over the past several months, Daejaun’s mother had noticed her son’s behaviour begin to change as he progressed at secondary school. It was terrifying to see her sweet, open-hearted son start to become sullen and withdrawn, and even aggressive towards his two younger brothers. “When something like this happens, the focus is always on the victim. As if they deserve it somehow. I don’t understand how that thinking comes about,” she said earlier this year. 

Many of the specifics still remain unclear, but Daejaun was likely to have been groomed into criminal activity by older local gang members, who used him to carry and supply drugs. The day of his murder, he was carrying cash and a small amount of crack cocaine. He was also carrying a knife of his own, which had broken after he had thrown it at a fence upon being attacked. Judge Sarah Munro KC this morning rejected out of hand the defence’s argument that Daejaun had been carrying a second knife. 

Jodian Taylor knew her son was at risk. She had started monitoring her son’s behaviour with increasing closeness, badgering his school for meetings and even referring herself to social services in an attempt to access the help she needed. She said that social services dismissed her concerns, saying his case did not meet the threshold for intervention. Perhaps most shocking was the assertion that the social worker eventually assigned to Daejaun’s case did not show up for scheduled meetings. Greenwich Council said it could not comment due to the ongoing independent child safeguarding review. Jodian Taylor is convinced her son was on the cusp of turning his life around, having been due back at school the Monday after his killing. Several questions remain, not least who was responsible for grooming Dejaun into criminality.

As Judge Munro prepared to deliver the sentences, she offered up a few depressingly revealing remarks. Marko Balaz had an IQ of around 66. Diagnosed with learning disabilities, he could be described as suggestible, with an obvious lack of maturity. Still, he had also boasted about his role on the phone to his cousin and girlfriend. As for Imre Doue, he had grown up in a loving home. Things had begun to curdle in 2020, after his mother had spent some time out of the country, during which time he was groomed into criminal exploitation. His behaviour had disintegrated from that point to the time of Daejaun’s murder, his life mostly reduced to wandering the streets of Woolwich, smoking weed while armed with a lethal weapon. It was likely that he had regularly been carrying machetes from the age of thirteen. 

Imre Douet was handed a minimum term of 21 years in prison for killing Daejaun Campbell. Marko Balaz will serve at least 11 years in prison for manslaughter, as well as drug charges. If the imposing, oak panelled courtrooms of the Old Bailey are where these stories culminate, they represent just a fraction of their complexity. Judge Munro acknowledged Jodian Taylor during her closing remarks: “She asks herself the same question that we ask ourselves on a daily basis in this court…when will this end?” 

Outside the Old Bailey, Jodian Taylor addressed the press in stronger terms. “The authorities knew who these boys were – they always do. They had chances to act and didn’t. The system keeps giving second chances to those who destroy lives, and no chances to the lives they destroy.” The system had not simply failed, she continued. It had abandoned those who most needed its protection. “And until it learns to protect the innocent before it comforts the guilty,” she said, “more mothers will stand where I stand, and more names like Daejaun’s will be carved into stone long before their time.”

Photograph by Jonathan Brady/PA Wire