Damilola Taylor's father was Woolwich knifeman's mentor when he was being bullied as a child

Support: Richard Taylor tried to help murder suspect Michael Adebowale, when he was a child

The father of murdered schoolboy Damilola Taylor acted as a mentor to Woolwich suspect Michael Adebowale, who was known to his friends as Toby.
Asked about Wednesday’s events, Richard Taylor said: ‘I was terribly shocked. It’s a different Toby, or Michael, that I saw that day. I don’t believe it was anything Islamic.’
Mr Taylor, whose son was just ten when he was killed in Peckham, South London in 2000, said he had known Adebowale, 22, since he was ten.
He said that he tried to help him after he was bullied at school and then became involved with drugs and gangs.
But he said that when he spoke to Adebowale two months ago, he had told him that he had changed his ways as he had become a Muslim.
But he said that when he spoke to Adebowale two months ago, he had told him that he had changed his ways as he had become a Muslim.
‘Having seen how my own son was stabbed to death, made me feel that... whatever happens, they [the killers] will still be alive, they will still be on the street or maybe they will take them away from the public or change their faces. They don’t deserve to live.’

Michael Adebowale's mother also apparently desperately battled to help him as his behaviour became more erratic.
Friends say Juliet Obasuyi was worried he was turning against the family and wanted him to have 'spiritual guidance' before he radicalised himself.

The 43-year-old was often left in tears after speaking to her son and would approach neighbours and friends for help.
It has also been claimed that Adebowale became radicalised after trying to escape gangland ‘trouble’.

Aftermath: Michael Adebowale, of Greenwich, south-east London, at the scene where Lee Rigby was stabbed to death

Victim: Drummer Lee Rigby who died in Woolwich on Wednesday

He was apparently told to ‘disappear’ after he was caught up with a local gang known as the Woolwich Boys, and underwent a dramatic change of personality.
He gave up alcohol and began distributing radical leaflets near his mother’s home in Greenwich, south-east London.
Once a fun-loving schoolboy who was described as ‘always smiling’ and chatted to neighbours about Jamie Oliver recipes, he began dressing in traditional Islamic dress and preaching a radical message of hate.
Neighbours said his Nigerian-born mother was a probation officer and a ‘hard-working’ Christian woman who raised Adebowale alone after separating from his father.

Police raided her flat and a property linked to Adebowale’s father, Adeniyi Adebowale, in Holloway, North London.

Plain-clothes officers were seen carrying six plastic bags full of video cassettes and audio tapes from the Holloway flat.

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