Lawrence case men guilty of race attack

Two former suspects in the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation were today found guilty of carrying out a racist attack on an off-duty black police officer just half a mile from where the black teenager was killed.

David Norris, 25, a passenger in a car driven by Neil Acourt, 27, threw a McDonald’s drink at Detective Constable Gareth Reid and shouted ‘‘nigger’’ as the policeman walked home from Eltham railway station in south east London on May 11 last year.

Acourt meanwhile drove the car at Det Con Reid as part of a ‘‘joint enterprise’’ with Norris to cause him harassment, alarm or distress motivated ‘‘by virtue of one reason and one reason alone - his colour’’.

Norris, of Benningfield Court, Chislehurst, Kent, and Acourt, of Dutton Street, Greenwich, south east London, denied the charge.

Giving evidence at Woolwich Crown Court, Norris maintained he had not used any racist language and said he threw the cup because he ‘‘flipped’’ in a ‘‘moment of madness’’ brought on by nine years of persecution following the Lawrence investigation.

But today Norris and Acourt looked on as a jury of seven women and five men took two hours to reject their defence and decide that the pair had targeted Det Con Reid because he was black.