Ricky Preddie leapt from a bail hostel window when 20 police were called to arrest him and take him back to prison
Damilola Taylor's killer was heard screaming as he tried to flee 20 police officers who swooped to arrest him and drag him back to prison - just 16 days after being freed.
Ricky Preddie leapt from a bail hostel window where he had been living after he heard probation workers calling for help to arrest him and recall him to jail.
After a dramatic chase involving almost two dozen officers, some with dogs, he was wrestled to the ground, arrested and escorted back to prison in a police van.
It is the second time he has been released then recalled for breaking the conditions of his licence.
Last night, Preddie, who from recent photographs appears to have been spending time in the prison gym, was back in London's Pentonville Prison.
He is now likely to stay behind bars until his tariff expires in May 2013.
Yesterday, Damilola's father Richard demanded a public inquiry to find out how ‘the system has failed so badly in this case’.
Preddie was arrested on Thursday night after entering a South London estate to meet up with fellow gang members, breaching the terms of his release.
Ten-year-old Damilola bled to death after being stabbed with a broken bottle on a council estate in Peckham, South London, in November 2000, as he walked home from the local library after school. He had moved to Britain from Nigeria only a few months before.
Preddie, now 24, was first released in 2010, four years into an eight-year sentence. Only six months later he was recalled after returning to the Peckham estates he terrorised as a boy in breach of his licence.
On January 25 this year, he was freed a second time. Police were alerted after he was seen in Southwark, where he was thought to be associating with gang members.
One eyewitness told The Sun of Preddie's arrest: 'He put up quite a fight. He was screaming his head off and flailing his arms and legs around shouting "I'm the hardest man in the world, don't F*** with me."
'But the police restrained him on the ground. They picked him up, bent him over, handcuffed him and bundled him into their van.'
Damilola’s father Richard said he was planning to write to the Prime Minister calling for an inquiry.
He said: ‘I am very angry with the Parole Board for the way they handled this and the way they have ignored my advice.’
Mr Taylor, 64, had previously pleaded with the authorities not to release Ricky Preddie or his brother Danny, both of whom were jailed for eight years for Damilola’s manslaughter in 2006. Danny was released last September.
