egafd.com

This case could never have been brought had the Blair government not abandoned the principle of double jeopardy. This basic tenet stopped governments persecuting people by subjecting them to trial after trial until a guilty verdict was reached.

All five were previously acquitted of the murder. Now you may think that the crime was so horrendous that it was the CPS and Met's duty to continue investigating, probing and questioning. But that's not really the point. Norris et al are probably guilty of Stephen Lawrence's murder but a jury acquitted them. As one of the earlier posters said "I don't like you therefore you are guilty. I like you therefore you are innocent."

Justice is supposed to be blind.

With all the publicity this case has attracted over the years, can any juror really claim that they were disinterested in the case?

And a final point: was Stephen Lawrence the total innocent portrayed in the media? Even if the stories I have heard are true, that doesn't mean he deserved to die but it does perhaps mean that things are not quite so cut and dried...

As both of them were below the age of 18 when the crime was commited this will have to be taken into account when sentencing, as will also the fact that the bill for Racist Aggravated crimes was not in place at the time so expect a more lenient sentence, i expect there will also be an appeal on some technical detail as DNA was the main evidence for the prosecution...

Essex lad wrote:

And a final point: was Stephen Lawrence the total innocent portrayed in the media? Even if the stories I have heard are true, that doesn't mean he deserved to die but it does perhaps mean that things are not quite so cut and dried...



I've heard this too, usually by someone who would like to see Stephen Lawrence as less than saintly to somehow justify the actions that happened to him and its funny how people are critical of the new evidence that has come to light but have no evidence to suggest he was less than the studious young lad he was purported to be.


There is no forensic evidence to suggest otherwise.

I think the he said/ she said stuff should be discounted simply because it was 18 years ago and nothing can be proven and EVEN if he was a bit of a naughty boy, this should have no bearing on why he would be jumped by 20 white guys in "a swarm" in what appeared to be a racist in motive attack.

If he had a knife and stabbed someone else then that would shift my opinion on things considerably

All that rumour seems to sugges is that simply because he was black he must have been a criminal. Is that to to say every white guy is a kiddie fiddler because he is white?

...Well thats the rumour I heard. Personally I don't believe it though.

As youths, Dobson and Norris were part of a teenage gang which terrorised the estate on which Stephen was murdered, led by a pair of brothers, the Acourts, who referred to themselves as ?The Krays?.

Dobson is currently in prison on drugs charges, while David Norris, who has a conviction for a previous racist offence, is the son of Clifford Norris, a well-known south London gangster.

Clifford Norris was even suspected of paying off witnesses in other cases against his son, and is thought to have coached some of the suspects ahead of their police interviews over the murder of Stephen.


The jury heard that Dobson and the Acourt brothers, Neil and Jamie, were arrested on 7 May, 1993, 15 days after Stephen was murdered.

David Norris was not at home when police arrived to search his house and went to the police station three days later. Luke Knight, the fifth suspect, was arrested nearly a month later on 3 June.

But no mention was made of how the police alighted upon the men as suspects.

Far from facing the wall of silence that features in many gang murder cases, the police had intelligence almost immediately suggesting the names of the men who murdered Stephen.

It is thought that 26 different people had put their names to the police as responsible for the murder within the first 48 hours.

On the day after the murder an anonymous woman rang police and suggested that "two boys who call themselves the Krays" could be responsible.

The following day police received two anonymous letters. One left in a telephone kiosk said: "The people involved in last night's stabbing are: Neil Acourt, Jamie Acourt, David Norris and Gary Dobson.?

It added: ?These b*****ds are definitely involved and must be stopped because they keep getting away with it. Approach these sh*** with care. Do us a favour and prove it. Good luck.?

Another with the same names was left under the windscreen wiper of a police car. It read: ?Be careful when you arrest them. The house is full of knives."

While another note named those responsible as a ?group of youths on the Kidbrooke Estate who always carry knives and threaten people?.

The violent gang

The Acourts were considered prime suspects because they were the leaders of the gang.

Between them they were alleged to have taken part in a handful of other attacks, some involving Dobson and Norris, and others which took place in the same area where Stephen was murdered.

In 1991 Lee Pearson was stabbed outside a kebab shop in Well Hall Road, the same street where Stephen was killed. The Acourts were the police?s main suspects, but Mr Pearson refused to sign a statement implicating them.

In July 1992 an Asian boy, Rohit Duggal, was stabbed to death by Peter Thompson, again on Well Hall Road. Thompson was named as a member of the Acourts? gang in the anonymous calls to the police the day after Stephen?s death.

In November 1992 a black youth named Kevin London said that Gary Dobson threatened him with a knife after challenging him over the fact he had a white girlfriend. Dobson denied it and no charges were brought.

Norris and Jamie Acourt were also suspects in the stabbing of Darren Witham in Chislehurst in 1992. Both were charged, but the charges were later dropped.

A month before Stephen?s death, in March 1993, David Norris is alleged to stabbed a man named Stacey Benefield with a miniature sword after he tried to calm an argument Norris had with a friend of his.

Norris and Neil Acourt were suspected by police of being involved in the attack. Only Norris stood trial and was acquitted.

The same month Gurdeep Banghal, 22 was stabbed by a white youth while working in a Wimpy restaurant in Eltham. His attacker is said to have called him a ?P*** b******?.

Information received by the police suggested those responsible for the Lawrence murder were also responsible for the stabbing of Mr Banghal.

The attack appears to be referenced in the secret recordings made by police of the gang in Dobson?s flat in December 1994.

Relaying the story, Dobson says: ?He said ?The f****** black b****** I am going to kill him?. I cracked up laughing. I went ?what black geezer??. He went ?The Wimpy one, the f****** black n***** c***, f****** black b******. I went ?What, the P***??.

The jury was also told that, when interviewed by police in 1993, Gary Dobson named the Acourts as his best friends and also mentioned Luke Knight. He also told police he associated with youths named Charlie Martin and Danny Caetano.

What the jury did not hear was how the pair were not around the night Stephen Lawrence was killed because they were awaiting trial for a knife attack on a rival gang member who according to the prosecution they had quite literally tried to skin alive. A surgeon said he had never seen such wounds and the pair were convicted.

In May 2001, Norris and Neil Acourt were involved in a racist attack on a black off-duty police officer. The pair drove at PC Gareth Reid, shouted n***** and threw a drink at him. They were both jailed for 18 months.

During his time on remand, Norris has been attacked and badly beaten up by other prisoners. In one violent incident he had his nose broken, lost four teeth and had four of his ribs broken.

The Norris clan

In the 1980s David Norris's father, Clifford, ran much of south London?s drugs trade.

During the trial, the jury was given glimpses and clues which suggested that his upbringing was blessed with more wealth than his friends, but it was never explicitly explained why.

While Dobson, Knight and the Acourts lived near each other on the Brook estate in Eltham, the court heard that, Norris lived in relative luxury in a mansion in Berryfield Close, Chislehurst.

When officers arrived to search the house they were forced to ring the intercom to gain access to the ?800,000 mock Tudor gated mansion in which the Norris family lived.

In his own evidence Norris made reference to his family?s wealth.

Shown a photograph of his younger brother wearing what appeared to be the clothes the prosecution allege Norris was wearing on the night of the murder, it was suggested that perhaps they were hand-me-downs.

Norris said that his family were not in the habit of recycling clothes. ?Not in my house, sir,? he said. ?We had quite a bit of money so we didn?t need to.?

When they were children, Norris did not catch the bus to football training like his friends. Instead his father would drop him off in the Porsche 911 sports car he had bought using cash pulled out of a carrier bag.

Clifford Norris?s presence is also thought to have scared some witnesses into coming forward, fearful of making an enemy of the infamous Norris clan.

While his youth was gilded by criminality, David Norris, and his father, have enjoyed a rather spectacular fall from grace in criminal circles.

When officers came knocking in September 2010 with a warrant for David?s arrest, they found him living out of his van and dossing in a bedsit above Clancy?s pub in Greenwich.

Having fallen out with his father he was forced to eek out a living selling scrap metal.

Norris, a twice-married father-of-five, is effectively homeless and no longer contributes to his children's upbringing. The 35-year-old has complained of depression and has been on benefits for long spells.

His father has also experienced a dramatic decline in his fortunes.

At the time of Stephen?s murder, Clifford Norris had been on the run after being sought on drugs charges since 1988. He was eventually arrested in 1994.

The failure to detain him sooner has led to claims that he influenced the police investigation into his son. It was alleged that Clifford ?schooled? the suspects before their police interviews, leading to most of them giving ?no comment? answers.

Clifford has previous for allegedly interfering in cases which concern his son.

Shortly after charges were brought in the case of Stacey Benefield, the victim was approached by a man who gave him ?2,000 to drop the case. The man is presumed to be Clifford Norris.

In the Lawrence case two officers were investigated amid claims that they were corrupted by Norris, but the allegations were never substantiated.

Clifford was convicted after his arrest and now lives in a bedsit above a shop.

Gary Dobson

Following a series of arrests for relatively minor offences, such as theft and handling stolen goods, Dobson was finally jailed for five years in 2010 after being caught drug dealing.

A father-of-one, he lived with the mother of his son in Shooters Hill close to the scene of the murder, but they split up several years ago.

Prior to his arrest on drug offences he was living with current girlfriend Michelle Lines who he knew from his time at Crown Woods school.

She has vowed to stand by him and has attended court on a daily basis throughout the trial to offer him her support.

Dobson has been more successful than some of the others in finding work as a bricklayer and labourer at building sites across London.

Far from hiding his notoriety however Dobson was not afraid to boast of his hard-man reputation.

One Australian scaffolder, who worked with Dobson on a building site in south London said: ?He didn?t try to hide who he was. He never mentioned Stephen Lawrence but everyone knew who he was and he used his reputation. It was like he was saying ?I am not someone to be messed with?.?

The videotape

One of the most dramatic moments of the trial came when the jury were shown covert surveillance footage from Dobson's home in December 1994.

The tape captured the suspects exchanging a litany of racist rants. The tape reveals, however, that the men appeared to have worked out they were being bugged.

That knowledge could sum up statements made by some of the men who attempt to distance themselves from Stephen's murder.

During an apparent discussion about the Lawrence case, Neil Acourt says: "I fancy they've had a crack deal me self [sic]."

Norris replies: "Yeah came down to get a bit of toot or something or had a bit of crack, it's all gone wrong, the c---'s" got knackered up and all of a sudden four innocent people are getting done for it."

Norris adds: "Every time it comes on the news the real people are sitting laughing their nuts off."

Luke Knight adds: "Thinking they've got away f------ scott free."

"Yeah," Acourt adds. "They're definitely doing that."

Lets hope they round up the other scum bags who assisted these two low lifes.

They will probably be out in 7 years time or less.

Well tuf766, in fact they have been given MINIMUM terms of 14 years and 15 years, so unless they can appeal it successfully the chances of getting out in 7 years time or less are zero.

They will appeal, human rights and all that, could be 4 years max they serve.

oh and will no doubt say the media played too big a role in their conviction and so will get a huge compensation payout.

Human rights??? Thats a hoot. They should be shipped of to a russian gulag of infringing people of their lives let alone human rights.

They sound like proper scum and Stephen Lawrences murder aside these two should have been banged up years ago.

They sound like a menace to everybody living. Not just ethnics.

They'll get theirs inside for sure