A life cut short

A powerful drama imagines the life Anthony Walker, the Liverpool teenager killed in a racist attack, might have led

- HANNAH DAVIES, IAN MACEWAN, RICHARD MCCLURE.

It’s 15 years since Liverpool teenager Anthony Walker was killed in a brutal racist attack that robbed him of a bright future.

On the night of 29 July 2005, the A-level student was at a bus stop with his girlfriend and cousin when he was racially abused, chased and attacked by Michael Barton, brother of footballer Joey Barton, and Paul Taylor, who killed Anthony with an ice axe.

To mark the 15th anniversary of the murder, writer Jimmy McGovern has created a powerful drama, starring Toheeb Jimoh in the title role, that imagines the life Anthony might have led had he lived, and re-creates the shocking events of that tragic night.

Liverpudlian McGovern, whose 1996 TV film Hillsborough dramatised the 1989 football stadium tragedy, vividly recalls the shock waves felt in his native city following Anthony’s death.

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