{"id":1975,"date":"2011-05-20T07:27:51","date_gmt":"2011-05-20T06:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/?p=1975"},"modified":"2011-05-20T07:27:51","modified_gmt":"2011-05-20T06:27:51","slug":"at-last-stephen-lawrence-murder-suspects-to-stand-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/?p=1975","title":{"rendered":"At last: Stephen Lawrence murder suspects to stand trial"},"content":{"rendered":"
\r\n\t\"\"<\/a>\r\n\t
Stephen Lawrence<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n

David Norris and Gary Dobson will stand trial at the Old Bailey later this year for the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in Eltham, south-east London in 1993. The murder is the most high-profile unsolved murder in Britain.<\/p>\n

The Court of Appeal on Wednesday quashed the 1996 acquittal of Gary Dobson and ordered a retrial following an application last October by the Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer.<\/p>\n

Announcing the decision, the Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge said: \u201cAfter conducting a detailed examination of a large body of evidence, we have come to the conclusion that there is sufficient reliable and substantial new evidence to justify the quashing of the acquittal and to order a new trial.”<\/p>\n

Dobson and Norris were arrested and charged last September with the murder and remanded in custody. This was not reported for legal reasons.<\/p>\n

Stephen’s mother Doreen Lawrence said: \u201cI am really pleased by the judgment, which has been a long time in coming, but we still have a long way to go.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cSo, at this moment in time, all I can think about is Stephen and that perhaps somewhere down the line we will finally get justice for him.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

The Crown Prosecution Service said that it and the Metropolitan Police had worked with forensic scientists to review evidence in the case and a full forensic review had begun in June 2006.<\/p>\n

New scientific evidence was found and on that basis the prosecution applied for a retrial.<\/p>\n

The CPS said: \u201cOur thoughts at this stage go to Stephen’s family, who have never given up their quest to see justice for Stephen.”<\/p>\n

The law was changed in 2005 abolishing the so-called double jeopardy rule which now means that people can be re-tried for the same crime.<\/p>\n

The 1999 inquiry into the Metropolitan Police\u2019s original mishandling of the racially motivated murder was a landmark moment for British policing. Sir William Macpherson branded the force \u201cinstitutionally racist\u201d and recommended sweeping reforms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen Lawrence David Norris and Gary Dobson will stand trial at the Old Bailey later this year for the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence in Eltham, south-east London in 1993. The murder is the most high-profile unsolved murder in Britain. The Court of Appeal on Wednesday quashed the 1996 acquittal of Gary Dobson and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1975"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1981,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1975\/revisions\/1981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}