Lawrence killers jailed for ‘terrible and evil crime’

A JUDGE jailed two white men yesterday for the “evil” murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993, one of Britain’s most notorious racist crimes which prompted a major police overhaul.

On Tuesday, Gary Dobson, aged 36, and David Norris, aged 35, were found guilty by a jury of being part of a gang of white youths who stabbed the 18-year-old to death in an unprovoked attack at a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London.

Handing down the sentences in a packed courtroom at London’s Old Bailey, Judge Colman Treacy said Lawrence’s murder was a “terrible and evil crime” committed for “no other reason than racial hatred”.

He sentenced Dobson, who was aged 17 at the time of the attack, to at least 15 years and two months in jail, while Norris, who was 16 at the time, was given a minimum of 14 years and three months.

The convictions bring some closure to a long-running case which the judge said had “scarred the conscience of the nation”.

The case sparked an overhaul of the police after a damning report found the original investigation was hampered by “institutional racism”.

Lawrence’s father Neville welcomed the jail terms but said it was “only one step in a long, long journey”.

He said he hoped Dobson and Norris would “go and lay down in their beds and think that they weren’t the only ones who were responsible for the death of my son and... give up the rest of the people”.

The convicted pair were among five suspects arrested within days of the murder, and Scotland Yard police chief Bernard Hogan-Howe yesterday pledged not to give up in the search for their accomplices.

“The other people involved in the murder of Stephen Lawrence should not rest easily in their beds,” he said.

The victim’s mother, Doreen Lawrence, said the sentences were “quite low” but accepted that the pair had been treated as juveniles because they were under 18 at the time. If they had been adults, they could have faced 30 years.

Judge Treacy said the murder had a “degree of general premeditation” as members knew the gang was armed, even if it could not be proven that either had wielded the knife.

“A totally innocent 18-year-old youth on the threshold of a promising life was brutally cut down in the street in front of eye witnesses by a racist, thuggish gang,” he said.

“You were both members of that gang. I have no doubt at all that you fully subscribed

Lawrence’s parents had campaigned tirelessly for justice for their son, who is buried in a secret location in his ancestral home of Jamaica, and the pressure ended their marriage.

Although she remains highly critical of the police investigation, Doreen said the sentencing was “the beginning of starting a new life, because we have been in limbo for so long”.

Norris and Dobson were convicted on the basis of new forensic evidence which was not available to detectives in 1993.

Dobson had already been serving a five-year jail term for supplying and possessing drugs, which has been wrapped into his murder sentence.