January 03, 2012

Stephen Lawrence murder: Dobson and Norris guilty

Two men have been convicted of the racist murder of black London teenager Stephen Lawrence 18 years after the attack.

Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty by an Old Bailey jury after a trial based on forensic evidence.

Scientists found a tiny blood stain on Dobson's jacket that could only have come from Mr Lawrence.

As he was led away, he told the jury they had condemned an "innocent man". Sentencing will be on Wednesday.

Stephen's parents, Doreen and Neville, wept in court as the jury found both men guilty. Duwayne Brooks, Stephen's best friend who had been with him on the night of the murder, tweeted: "Some justice at last".

Gary Dobson's mother, who told the trial her son was at home during the attack, wept in the public gallery of Court 16.

The original failed investigation led to the Metropolitan Police being branded as institutionally racist.

Stephen Lawrence was 18 when he was stabbed to death near a bus stop in Eltham, south London, in April 1993. Police identified five men who were later named in a damning public inquiry as the "prime suspects".

By that time there had already been a catalogue of police errors and two failed prosecutions, one brought by Stephen's parents, Doreen and Neville Lawrence.

But in a four-year-long cold case review, a fresh team of forensic scientists uncovered microscopic evidence linking the men to the murder - evidence that the police had held all along.

The material - blood stains, clothing fibres and a single hair belonging to the teenager - were recovered from the clothes of the suspects which had been seized in 1993.

Scientists recovered the material using advanced techniques which were not available to the original case scientists.


Stephen Lawrence was attacked by a group of white youths in south-east London
Dobson, 36, and Norris, 35, denied the murder. They said their clothing had been contaminated as police mixed up evidence down the years. Detectives spent months establishing the movements and handling of the exhibits since 1993 - and the jury were told that contamination was implausible.

Gary Dobson was jailed in 2010 for drugs trafficking. He is among a small number of men to have been tried twice for the same crime after the Court of Appeal quashed his 1996 acquittal for the murder.

In an exclusive interview with the BBC's Panorama, Stephen's mother Doreen Lawrence said: "I don't forgive the boys who killed Stephen. They don't think they have done anything wrong.

"They took away Stephen's life and there is nothing in their behaviour or anything to show they they regret what their actions have done and the pain it has caused us as a family."

Acting Assistant Commissioner Cressida Dick, who ordered the 2006 cold case review that led to the convictions, said the case had been extremely important for the Lawrence family, the Metropolitan Police and society at large.

She said: "It's a matter of huge regret to the Met that it has taken 18 years to get to this point.

"It has been a unique case in policing. Firstly the horrible, horrible nature of the attack on the night. The time in which it has taken to bring anybody to justice and the tireless campaigning of the Lawrences.

"There is no comparable case. All homicide cases are terrible, but for us it is a very important case. Most importantly we wanted to be able to bring people to justice for the killing and try to give Doreen and Neville Lawrence and their family some sense of justice."

BBC News

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

At last! If it wasn't for the cover-up justice would have been served years ago!

Anonymous said...

Great news. I hope they can get enough evidence to charge the other 3.

Before you nuzie tossers start the slandering of Stephen as you usually do have a word with Michael Barnbrook.

Anonymous said...

I bet the BNP will make defending the two convicted murderers a centre-piece of their London Mayoral campaign.

Re:Tweeta said...

LIVERPOOL EDL THREATEN OCCUPY ONCE AGAIN: -

http://twitpic.com/82mbjx

Anonymous said...

Like it or not, they were convicted on very flimsy and potentially fabricated evidence, dont be surprised to see their release and subsequent compensation in the not too distant future...

Anonymous said...

The Daily Telegraph comment pages has been taken over by BNP fascists and racists on this subject.

Pondlife like 'SpearofOdin' are engaging massive amounts of 'whataboutery' !

John P said...

Pondlife like 'SpearofOdin' are engaging massive amounts of 'whataboutery' !

Spear of Odin is that Lee Barnes? I'm sure he has used that name before on scumfront.

Anonymous said...

Hull EDL admit knowing the wanted convict EDL thugs, and also, claim to be friends with the local Royal British Legion organiser Barry Medhurst.

If this is the case, let's boycott the RBL!

http://edlnews.co.uk/edl-news

The police ought to speak to Barry Medhurst to get the names of the two thugs!

http://edlnews.co.uk/edl-news/humberside-police-seek-two-edl-members

Anonymous said...

Like it or not, they were convicted on very flimsy and potentially fabricated evidence, dont be surprised to see their release and subsequent compensation in the not too distant future...

The British State like to leave its miscarriages of Justice in prison for a decade at least before releasing them.

Anyhow, I don't remeber the racist BNP and National Front expressing any sympathy for the Birmingham 6 back in the day. In fact they called for them to be executed, guilty or not.

NewsHound said...

IN TOUCH TIMES, WHY DO EUROPEANS ALWAYS TURN TO THE RIGHT: -

http://www.neurope.eu/blog/tough-times-why-do-europeans-always-turn-right

Odin Sucks! said...

"Spear of Odin is that Lee Barnes? I'm sure he has used that name before on scumfront"

For all of the BNP/EDL/BFP's proclaimations about "making Britain a Christian country" once again, arseholes like LLB believe in weird racial Hitleresque manifestations of Norse Gods, and are openly anti-Christian online...

Anonymous said...

If the E.D.L and the B.N.P had their way, scum like this would never been retried.

Anonymous said...

EDL Facebookers are calling the retrial "a joke".

Shame on you, EDL nutzis!

Anonymous said...

"EDL Facebookers are calling the retrial "a joke".
Shame on you, EDL nutzis!"

Do you agree, EDlers are now far more openly racist since they have announced their merger with the Shitish Freedom lot??????????

Anonymous said...

The Daily Telegraph comments page has been a racist open sewer for a least a year now.

Anonymous said...

A year after Stephen's death, secret surveillance footage filmed in Dobson's Eltham flat captured the men's hate-filled racist outlook on life.

In the 1994 video, which was shown to the Old Bailey jury in the 2011 murder trial, Norris was heard to say: "I would go down Catford and places like that I am telling you now, with two sub-machine guns."

Using extremely racist and sexually explicit language, he said he would take a black person, torture them, skin them alive and set them alight.

"I would blow their two arms and legs off and say 'go on, you can swim home now'. They would be bobbing around like that."

He also shared an anecdote about beating up a black man, thought to be in his 60s, in a park following an argument.

The surveillance footage "showed violent racism at its worst," concluded Sir William Macpherson.

His 1999 report refers to the five suspects as being "infected and invaded by gross and revolting racism".


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16097242

Anonymous said...

Awesome result

You might want to post-up this story -

http://www.thelocal.de/society/20120102-39867.html

Anonymous said...

"Like it or not, they were convicted on very flimsy and potentially fabricated evidence"?

The evidence was NOT flimsy and was NOT fabricated - whoever said that is just plain lying. The defence argued the evidence might have been contaminated (which is a very different thing), but evidently the prosecution, the judge, and the jury, did not agree

Anonymous said...

Just disappointed the the Acourts and Luke Knight aren't going down too. Neil Acourt was the ringleader, and the one with the biggest hard-on for knives.

John P said...

Anonymous said...

Awesome result

You might want to post-up this story -

http://www.thelocal.de/society/20120102-39867.html

7:31 PM, January 03, 2012

I'll post it later, I'm currently sifting through the leaked stuff on the website that the hackers have set up. nazi-leaks.net

UKF said...

Re nazi-leaks, thanks John. More good news is that Rod Liddle (the scum ex-SWP member and Spectator hack who described multiculturalism, ie - many of my relatives - as "human filth") may be referred for contempt of court over the Lawrence case, let's hope The Spectator go down with him too

http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/stephen-lawrence-judge-refers-spectator-over-possible-contempt/s2/a546783/

Anonymous said...

off topic but bloody hell have you seen the stuff on that nazi leak website lol

Anonymous said...

"Before you nuzie tossers start the slandering of Stephen as you usually do have a word with Michael Barnbrook.


Know he was police but what does he know that many of us dont???

Anonymous said...

Know he was police but what does he know that many of us dont???

On the BDF Michael Barnbrook claims he knew Stephen Lawrence as part of some sort of Police/Coummunity Liason Project. Barnbrook speaks very highly of Stephen describing him as a nice young lad whom he was impressed with.

This was met with abuse from fellow BNP members who accused Barnbrook of race treachery and 'civic nationalism' for daring to say such a thing.

John P said...

Anonymous said...

Know he was police but what does he know that many of us dont???

On the BDF Michael Barnbrook claims he knew Stephen Lawrence as part of some sort of Police/Coummunity Liason Project. Barnbrook speaks very highly of Stephen describing him as a nice young lad whom he was impressed with.

This was met with abuse from fellow BNP members who accused Barnbrook of race treachery and 'civic nationalism' for daring to say such a thing.

I just had a dig around and found the post

Much has been said and written about Stephen Lawrence since his murder on 22nd April, 1993, mostly by individuals who never knew or met him. At the time of his death I was a Metropolitan Police Inspector stationed at Eltham Police Station, just down the road from the murder scene. A murder squad was set up at Eltham Police Station to investigate the circumstances of Stephen's death.
During the days following the murder, rumours were spreading, both inside the police station as well as in the surrounding area about what had happened that had caused the altercation leading to the offence being committed. Most of these rumours were to the detriment of Stephen Lawrence, so much so that I went to the Murder Squad Office and informed a detective that I had known Stephen and was prepared to assist the enquiry into his murder in any way possible.
My name was taken and that was the last I ever heard until some time later when I was written to by the Assistant Chief Constable of the Kent Constabulary, who was conducting a review of the initial police investigation and asked to make a statement.
I made a statement which was subsequently read out at the public enquiry into Stephen's murder. How did I know Stephen Lawrence? For some years I had been a member of Cambridge Harriers Athletic Club based in Bexley. One day I was approached by a senior member of the club, Barry Ferguson, who asked me if I was prepared to be an athletics mentor to the colts, boys and youth team.
This duty consisted of driving a group of youngsters to athletics meetings at weekends, selecting what events they would enter and generally looking after them for the whole day. Stephen and his younger brother Stuart were members of Cambridge Harriers and over the next four years I regularly took them both to athletics meetings. Stephen was an outstanding athlete in both field and track events. He was always polite, enthusiastic and ready to please by volunteering to enter any event that was asked of him. He was sometimes arrogant due to his athletic capabilities as many youngsters are, but never stepped out of line. He was captain of the team due to his popularity amongst his peers. He was a real team player and I was very proud of him. I lost contact with Stephen about eighteen months before his murder when he gave up athletics to concentrate on his studies to become an engineer. It was a real pleasure to have known him and it goes without saying how devasted we all were on hearing of his untimely death. Unfortunately his name has always been in the limelight as a result of the Macpherson Report, which was set up to look into racism in the police force.
All I know is that Stephen is a victim in more than one way as a result of his name being used and abused by the establishment, the media and even those close to him. It seems it will all start up again as a result of the impending murder trial.

Anonymous said...

http://twitpic.com/7fdzqx

Anonymous said...

Many thanks for the answers about Michael barnbrook and Stephen Lawrence - can quite see why MB got stick from his political associates. Cant really see why he is in the bnp or whetever he has joined since its demise though.

Does put some of the rumours into perspective