TWO MEN ARE to face trial over the murder of Stephen Lawrence in London 18 years ago.
The 18-year-old student was stabbed to death in Eltham in the southeast of the city in April 1993.
Gary Dobson, 35, and David Norris, 34, were arrested in September last year over the murder and are in custody. They are accused of being part of a racist white gang who targeted and killed Lawrence because of his skin colour, The Guardian reports.
Gary Dobson, along with Neil Acourt and Luke Knight, stood trial in a private murder prosecution brought in 1996 by the parents of Lawrence and was found not guilty. In 2003 a law was established that meant double jeopardy no longer applied and people could then be retried for the same crime after being found not guilty, if “compelling” new evidence came to light. The appeal court agreed on Wednesday that new evidence was compelling enough to allow Dobson’s acquittal to be quashed, the Guardian reports. Their trial begins at the Old Bailey in November. No application to quash the acquittals of Neil Acourt and Luke Knight is before the court.
Although Dobson and Norris were charged last year tough reporting restrictions meant no details about the long-running case could be made public until now. The Lord Chief Justice in today’s ruling described it as a calamitous crime.
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