Gerald Douglas

Gerald Douglas was stabbed to death on the doorstep of his council flat in Peckham on the night of Tuesday 7 October 1986.

He had been trying to stop a gang of black youths reaching his friend at the doorway to a flat in Botney House on the Glebe Estate in Peckham Road.

Gerald Douglas had been a Rastafarian disc jockey and record dealer and he and the other man ran a mobile discotheque. It was heard that there had been a long-standing feud between two groups.

There were said to have been at least six people involved in the attack.

When the six men arrived at the flat they tried to get in whilst Gerald Douglas and his friend tried to keep the front door closed. One of the men produced a machete and during the violent struggle Gerald Douglas was stabbed and one of the six men suffered a head injury from the machete although his wound was not thought to have been serious.

Gerald Douglas was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital.

A 25-year-old unemployed man who was said to have been part of the gang was tried for his murder but was found not guilty following a defence submission of not enough evidence after it was heard the prosecution admitted that they could not prove that it had been him that had stabbed Gerald Douglas.