Lawrence suspects 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, aged 25, a passenger in a car driven by Neil Acourt, aged 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 11 May 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. The judge told them to expect a jail term.

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.

Judge Michael Carroll said: "I have sat and listened to the behaviour by the two defendants.

"I am satisfied on the material before me that if I permitted bail there would be substantial grounds to believe further offences will be committed."

The two defendants were remanded in custody for sentencing on 27 August.

Acourt, who was wearing a white shirt and dark coloured tie, said towards the press as he was taken down to the cells: "Fit up. Fit up".

Both he, and co–defendant Norris, who was wearing an open–necked purple checked shirt with grey suit, shook their heads and smiled on hearing the verdict of the jury.

The court was told that Acourt was convicted of possession of an offensive weapon on 14 February this year.

The judge was also told that Norris had convictions for driving offences and theft.

Detective Inspector Stuart Goodwin, of the Metropolitan Police who was with the Greenwich Community Safety Unit at the time of the race attack, said outside the court: "The fact this case came to court, and the verdict today, sends out a strong message to the people of London that the Metropolitan Police Service and the Crown will continue to work together to bring the perpetrators of hate crime to justice."

Stephen Lawrence, aged18, was stabbed and fatally wounded when he and his friend Duwayne Brooks were attacked by a gang of white youths in Eltham, south east London, in April 1993.

Police arrested Neil and Jamie Acourt, David Norris, Gary Dobson and Luke Knight but proceedings against Neil Acourt and Knight were later discontinued.

Neville and Doreen Lawrence, Stephen's parents, then took up a private prosecution against the five but the case against Jamie Acourt and Norris was dropped at the committal stage.

Neil Acourt, Knight and Dobson eventually stood trial for murder at the Old Bailey in April 1996 but a week into the case the jury was ordered to find them not guilty after the judge decided Brooks's evidence was unreliable.

Later, at the inquest into Stephen's death which ended in February 1997, the jury decided he had been "unlawfully killed in a completely unprovoked racist attack by five white youths".

The failure of the Metropolitan Police to bring anyone to justice for the murder has been a major source of frustration and embarrassment to the force which was branded "institutionally racist" by the Macpherson report into the initial inquiry.

Asked about the Stephen Lawrence murder inquiry, Mr Goodwin said: "The original case was completely separate from this one. The jury were told to disregard that. The defendants were convicted of a racially aggravated public order offence."

The officer said he was unable to comment on how Det Con Reid felt about the conviction.

Mr Goodwin said: "I cannot comment for him."

Pressed further on the issue of the Stephen Lawrence murder, he said: "This is nothing to do with that investigation. Unfortunately I cannot comment."

During the three–day trial, Woolwich Crown Court heard that Det Con Reid, who had been a police officer since 1990, was returning home after his day shift, and was not in uniform.

At about 6.25pm, he got off a train at Eltham came out of the station and walked towards Well Hall Road.

He told the court that he heard shouting coming from a car held at some traffic lights.

He recognised the driver and passenger as suspects from the Lawrence investigation, but at first thought that the driver was Jamie Acourt, Neil's brother.

The car then raced out of the junction and drove towards Det Con Reid, who at that point was standing on a traffic island, and he believed it was going to hit him.

He said: "The next snapshot I have is this arm, or the hand making a flicking motion and the container coming out of the window. I could still hear laughter and I heard the word 'nigger'.

"The container missed me. I froze on the spot, if the throw had been accurate it would have hit me, but it wasn't."

Asked how he felt then, he told the court: "Shocked, embarrassed, a little confused, thinking momentarily, 'What have I done to instigate this sort of behaviour?"'

He went on: "There were at least a dozen people at the bus stop, all looking at me, and I'm feeling embarrassed. It was like a walk of shame crossing that road."

Asked his feelings on the Lawrence case, Det Con Reid said: "That's something I had paid quite a lot of attention to, as a police officer, as a black man living in south east London, yes."

He later told the court: "Prior to this incident, it would be right for me to say that I felt disgust that no one had been convicted of this murder.

"Disappointment that mistakes had been made by an organisation that I was a part of, that didn't secure a conviction."

The judge also said that the pre–sentence report was purely to determine length of sentence, and not the type.