Stephen Lawrence trial verdict: For murderers Gary Dobson and David Norris, life must mean life

By
Sonia Poulton

Last updated at 11:54 PM on 3rd January 2012

You had to wonder how Doreen and Neville Lawrence managed to return, day after day, to sit in a courtroom with two men suspected of murdering their son.

As a parent I can’t fathom that. I think it is a near miracle that the Lawrences – divorced now, perhaps inevitably considering the strain – haven’t cracked up entirely in the 19 years since the murder of their teenage son, such is the humungous injustice they have received.

The original case – and subsequent trial – was legally and morally shameful to our country.

Stephen Lawrence killers

Guilty: Gary Dobson and David Norris were convicted of the murder of Stephen Lawrence in a landmark conviction after 18 years

Members of the Metropolitan Police handled the family with outrageous insensitivity, given their great loss, and the proceedings were hampered by what was described in the Macpherson report as ‘institutional racism’, within the force.

The Lawrences were let down at every turn by obfuscation and unnecessary deliberations.

It was an utter disgrace and those watching were in no doubt that what had occurred had added to the incomparable pain of Neville and Doreen losing their child in the first place. And in such heinous circumstances.

Victim: Stephen Lawrence, 18, was stabbed twice after he was attacked by a gang of racist white youths in Eltham, South London in 1993

Victim: Stephen Lawrence, 18, was stabbed twice after he was attacked by a gang of racist white youths in Eltham, South London in 1993

So it was that seven weeks ago Dobson and Norris returned to face trial on the strength of new forensic evidence. This included clothes fibres and hair which physically linked them to Stephen.

The trial, naturally, was harrowing in detail. During testimony at the Old Bailey one witness, Royston Westbrook, told of the moment he saw a group of white men ‘Collide’ with Stephen and his friend Duwayne Brooks. It was April 1993 close to a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London.

In words guaranteed to reduce any parent to hysterical sobs, the court – and the Lawrences, in particular – heard how Stephen appeared to be ’swallowed up’ by the gang as one of the member’s plunged a knife in him twice, severing main arteries.

Duwayne, these days a Lib-Dem politician, had managed to run before they felled Stephen, but he has repeatedly recognised members of the gang who were said to include brothers Neil and Jamie Acourt, Gary Dobson, Luke Knight and David Norris.

Nonetheless, they have, some might say quite expertly, managed to avoid conviction. They have been tried and re-tried. They still insist on their innocence.

Although it is difficult to find even one person who believes them.

Courage: The Daily Mail's unprecedented front-page accusation on February 14, 1997

Courage: The Daily Mail’s unprecedented front-page accusation on February 14, 1997

Certainly, this newspaper didn’t.

In a dramatic, and quite ground-breaking, front page, in February 1998, The Daily Mail, pictured all five men with the immortal caption: “MURDERERS – The Mail accuses these men of killilng. If we are wrong, let them sue us.’

Interestingly, none of the five ever did sue the newspaper but, instead, they went on to lead relatively anonymous lives, save for minor legal skirmishes here and there, until the new evidence was discovered.

For those of us who witnessed the Channel 4 undercover documentary, aired in 1997 this trial has not come a moment too soon.

The programme captured the gang members acting out in one of their homes. They had knives, which they plunged into cushions and as they did so they freely bragged about stabbing and ‘skinning alive blacks and Asians’.

As the white mother of a half-Jamaican child, Stephen’s story has always resonated with me. I have feared, greatly, that my own child, too, would be subject to a racist attack.

I’m not alone. It’s a thought that haunts many parents of mixed race, black and Asian children in this country. It’s not such a worry for parents of white children although it would be wrong to say that white people are not also attacked for their skin colour.

But the truth still remains that black people are far and away more likely to be the victim of a racist attack and while our nation mourns at the needless, brutal deaths of Stephen Lawrence, Rolan Addams and Anthony Walker – and any other number of people murdered because of the colour of their skin – institutional racism is still deeply ingrained.

And so while we can, and do, legislate against racial crimes, attitudes are not as simple to tackle. In-built prejudice requires fundamental changes to address the fears which feed it.

The truth is what we actually need – and quite desperately so – is a school curriculum with a fuller understanding of black history.

We need less slavery – have we not done that over and over again? – and more Mary Secol, the black Florence Nightingale who served in the Crimean War and who was recently voted the greatest black Briton ever.

When we focus on the achievements of people, rather than their nationality or culture, we stand a better chance of creating a colour-blind society.

Sadly, for Stephen Lawrence – a young college man with a promising life ahead of him, unlike the feral brutes who slayed him – his murderers did not see him as anything beyond a colour.

So it is that while today’s convictions of guilty for both Gary Dobson and David Norris will herald a brighter future for our country’s justice, we must not forget that this has taken nearly two decades – and there are still many people who are guilty by the association of obstructing justice for Stephen.

They know who they are, whether we ever get an opportunity to try them before a court of law remains to be seen.

So what we have is Dobson and Norris taking the full brunt. And so be it.

I ask, for the sake of Doreen and Neville Lawrence – and the loved ones Stephen was forced to leave behind – not to mention some much-needed optimism in our cultural relations, we can only hope that this time, justice will truly be done.  And life must really mean life.

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