Damilola Taylor was the schoolboy who was stabbed and left to bleed to death on a London housing estate on 27 November, 2000, just days before his 11th birthday.

His legacy has been twofold: first there was the prolonged search for justice which eventually resulted in the conviction of two teenage boys but also highlighted numerous failings in the legal system.

The second was a trust fund set up by his parents to combat the “enormous problems in society” which they blamed for his death.

Damilola Taylor was born in Lagos in Nigeria on 7 December, 1989 to Richard and Gloria Taylor . His father was a civil servant.

His sister Gbemi suffered from a severe form of epilepsy and this inspired Damilola's early ambition to be a doctor and medical researcher so he could find a cure for her.

Aged 10 he wrote: “I will travel far and wide to choose my destiny to remould the world. I know it is my destiny to defend the world which I hope to achieve in my lifetime.”

In August 2000, Gloria Taylor took her two children to England so Gbemi could get the treatment she needed. Richard continued to work in Nigeria to support them. Damilola enrolled at the local school in Peckham and spent a lot of his time in the library studying.

It was when he was walking home from the library on the afternoon of 27 November that he was the victim of an apparent attempted robbery and was stabbed in the leg with a broken beer bottle. He collapsed into a tower block stairwell and bled to death.

The resulting police investigation became one of the most notorious in British history with numerous errors being made regarding forensic evidence and unreliable witnesses. After six years, three trials and £20m expense, two brothers, who had been 12 and 13 at the time, were convicted of his manslaughter.

On the first anniversary of his killing Gloria and Richard launched the Damilola Taylor Trust with the support of local footballing hero Rio Ferdinand. The charity aimed to “heal many of the ills faced by today's youth”.

The Trust's work includes providing medical scholarships to underprivileged children and opening the Damilola Taylor Centre, a sport and community hub in Peckham.

“Our son wanted to be a doctor,” Mrs Taylor, who died of a heart attack on 8 April, 2008, said. “He was a leader and we are sure he would have been extraordinary.”