See my essay on Stephen Lawrence:
From: Hetty ter Haar <oldavenue@googlemail.com>
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, 3 January 2012, 10:32
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Stephen Lawrence verdict: Dobson and Norris guilty of racist murder
Stephen Lawrence verdict: Dobson and Norris guilty of racist murder
New evidence helps convict men of murder 18 years after teenager's
fatal stabbing
Vikram Dodd and Sandra Laville
Tuesday January 3 2012
guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/03/stephen-lawrence-verdict-guilty-murder
Two men have finally been convicted of the racist murder of Stephen
Lawrence, 18 years after a white gang fuelled by hatred stabbed the
black teenager to death.
Gary Dobson, 36, and David Norris, 35, were found guilty of murder on
Tuesday by a jury at the Old Bailey. The crime had raised searching
questions about racism in Britain.
The verdicts were delivered in a silent courtroom after the judge
ordered
everyone to remain quiet. Dobson shook his head as the guilty verdict
was announced. Norris stared ahead.
As he was led away to the cells, Dobson looked at the press bench and
the jury and said: "You have condemned an innocent man here today I
hope you can all live with it."
In the public gallery his mother, Pauline Dobson was heard sobbing. As
she walked away she said: "This is so wrong he did not kill that man
he is innocent."
Stephen Lawrence's father, Neville Lawrence was in tears. Doreen
Lawrence, seated near him, was also crying.
The judge Mr Justice Treacy said he would sentence both men tomorrow.
The pair were part of a group of five white men who were suspected
just hours after the murder in 1993, but had escaped justice through
police failings and because some witnesses were too scared to come
forward.
New scientific evidence tied Dobson and Norris to the murder and
exposed as lies their claims that they were not present when Lawrence
was attacked. A covert video shot in the flat Dobson rented in 1994
showed him and Norris bragging and fantasising about inflicting
violence on ethnic minorities, using explicit racist language, and
having close friends who handled knives.
The case was one of the most famous unsolved murders in Britain. An 18-
year fight for justice by Lawrence's parents led to a public inquiry
which uncovered blunders by the Metropolitan police, blamed on
institutional racism, which allowed his killers to escape justice.
Lawrence, 18, was murdered on 22 April 1993, as he and a friend waited
for a bus in Eltham, south-east London.
They were attacked by a group of five to six white youths who shouted:
"What, what nigger?" and then rushed towards them.
The jury heard that Lawrence's friend, Duwayne Brooks, urged him to
flee, shouting "get up and run Steve". But by then Lawrence had been
caught by the white group, which "swallowed" him up through its
"weight of numbers".
Prosecutor Mark Ellison QC said "hand and leg movements" were seen by
a witness as Lawrence was attacked. He was stabbed twice, in his upper
torso, with arteries being severed.
Ellison said: "Stephen Lawrence was likely to have been upright when
wound one was inflicted, but may have been lying on the ground by the
time he was stabbed in the left shoulder."
The group fled, the jury heard, leaving Lawrence dying on the
pavement. Despite efforts to save him, he was pronounced dead by
midnight. His death was caused by the loss of blood from stab wounds.
Ellison said: "The only discernible reason for the attack was the
colour of his skin. The way in which the attack was executed indicates
that this group were a group of like-minded young, white men who acted
together and reacted together. They shared the same racial animosity
and motivation."
Lawrence's parents, Doreen and Neville, had sat through much of the
detailed evidence about their son's murder, which had begun in
November. At times it seemed to almost overwhelm them.
The blunders from the first police investigation into the murder had
for more than a decade appeared to have been so severe that Lawrence's
killers would not face justice in court.
But new evidence was unearthed by a cold case review which used new
techniques and more rigorous methods to examine clothing from the
victim and from the five main suspects.
Scientists found that on Dobson's grey bomber jacket, in the weave of
its collar, was a blood spot, measuring 0.5mm by 0.25mm. The chances
of the blood coming from anyone other than Lawrence were one in a
billion.
Furthermore the re-examination found that 16 fibres from three pieces
of Lawrence's clothing were recovered from Dobson's jacket, or from
the evidence bag it had been stored in.
Norris was tied to the murder by two hairs belonging to Lawrence that
were found in the evidence bag containing jeans recovered from
Norris's bedroom. Ellison told the jury: "Within the debris from the
packaging of the exhibit ? were two short, dark brown-coloured, cut
hairs. They were 1mm and 2mm in length."
They were sent to the US for mitochondrial DNA testing, which focuses
on the genetic makeup of hair cells. The technique had not been
available in the mid-1990s. They were found to match Lawrence's DNA or
that of a maternal relative to a certainty of 999 in 1,000.
Seven fibres were also found on Norris's blue sweatshirt which
potentially came from two items of Lawrence's clothes.
Dobson and Norris took the stand in their own defence, after a covert
video exposing their racism and propensity for violence was played to
the jury.
It helped establish in the jury's minds that the pair were ? at around
the time of the murder at least ? racist and violent.
Norris was recorded talking about "skinning" black people and setting
them alight.
Dobson was recorded also uttering racist remarks, and saying he had
carried a Stanley knife and threatened to use it against a black man.
Norris said: "If I was going to kill myself do you know what I would
do? I would go and kill every black cunt, every Paki, every copper,
every mug that I know."
Norris later says: "I would, I would go down Catford and places like
that, I am telling you now, with two submachine guns and I am telling
you I would take one of them, skin the black cunt alive, mate, torture
him, set him 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."
Dobson is recorded discussing a man, calling him a "nigger" and
threatening him with a Stanley knife.
Dobson is caught by the camera "walking about with [a] large knife",
according to a transcript. Other extracts show him using the terms
"Paki" and "nigger".
Testifying in his own defence, Dobson admitted lying to police when,
in a 1993 interview, he told detectives he did not know Norris. For
his part, Norris told the Old Bailey, he could not remember where he
was on the night of the murder.
Dobson had previously been acquitted of the murder in 1996, after the
Lawrences brought a private prosecution. In May this year, the court
of appeal quashed his acquittal after deciding the scientific evidence
was sufficiently new and compelling.
Three other suspects remain free. Neil and Jamie Acourt, and Luke
Knight deny involvement in the murder.
Detectives hope that the long-awaited convictions will lead to new
evidence emerging against the rest of the gang.
Dobson and Norris claimed that the scientific evidence against them
came from contamination caused by failings in the way the exhibits had
been stored over the last 18 years.
Tellingly, they did not produce a single expert to testify in support
of their claims that contamination had somehow produced the evidence
against them.
guardian.co.uk Copyright (c) Guardian News and Media Limited. 2012
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
No comments:
Post a Comment