JOHNNIE COCHRAN TALKS TO BLACK LAWYERS IN LONDON

If O J Simpson had been tried in Britain the defence "would have been in real trouble", Mr Simpson's lawyer, Johnnie Cochran, told a conference of black lawyers in London yesterday, writes Jim Cusick.

Mr Cochran (above) was a speaker at the Race for Justice conference organised by the Society of Black Lawyers. A senior Scotland Yard officer, Detective Inspector David Michael, chairman of the Black Police Association, told the conference that racism was endemic in the Metropolitan Police.

Officers were prepared to falsify evidence against black suspects in the same way as Detective Mark Fuhrman had been accused of doing in the Simpson case, he said

Photograph by KALPESH LATHIGRA