Gary Dobson bragged about knife threat

Gary Dobson was seen swaggering around his flat bare-chested and holding a knife in police surveillance footage.

He said he was "disgusted" at the racist language he had used in the film, secretly recorded at his flat in 1994, and denied being racially prejudiced.

The footage showed him repeatedly using racial slurs, and telling a story about threatening a black colleague with a Stanley knife during a scuffle.

He told his friends: "I said, 'tap me once more, you silly c***, I'm going to f****** slice this down you seven times."

During the Old Bailey trial, a suit-clad Dobson often had supporters in the public gallery.

Jurors rejected his alibi that he had been at the Dobson family home at the time Mr Lawrence was killed, even though his parents and their long term friend gave evidence that he had.

They heard that he lied to police about knowing David Norris, to try to distance himself from his co-defendant.

He also lied about how he had heard the news of the death, trying to conceal the fact that he had visited Neil and Jamie Acourt on the night of the attack.

Dobson lived in Phineas Pett Road, Eltham in 1993, minutes from the scene where Mr Lawrence was fatally stabbed.

At the time he was studying IT at a college near Covent Garden, and later worked as an electrician's mate.

Dobson said being accused of the murder made him "bitter" and fuelled the hate-filled behaviour filmed by police in 1994.

The 36-year-old was acquitted of Mr Lawrence's murder in 1996 after a private prosecution against him, Neil Acourt and Luke Knight failed.

However in 2005, laws governing double jeopardy changed, so that a defendant could be re-tried if there were new and compelling evidence.

In April 2011, the Court of Appeal ruled that Dobson's acquittal could be quashed and he could face trial for Mr Lawrence's death.

He was already in prison at that stage, having been jailed for five years in July 2010 for supplying a class B drug and possessing a class B drug with intent to supply.

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* A shrunken family: The first journalist to interview the Lawrences recalls the scene
* The science that helped convict Gary Dobson

PA