Stephen Lawrence killer David Norris, 45, makes failed bid to be moved to an OPEN prison as he nears end of his 14 year and three month sentence for 1993 murder
- One of Stephen Lawrence’s killers has failed in his bid to transfer to open prison
- David Norris, 45, was jailed for life in 2012 and given a minimum term of 14 years
- As his minimum term nears, he applied to the Ministry of Justice for a transfer
- His plea was rejected by Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, due to the public risk
One of the racist killers of Steven Lawrence has failed in his attempt to move to an open prison as the minimum term of his sentence draws closer.
David Norris, 45, was jailed for life in 2012 with a minimum term of 14 years for the murder of Mr Lawrence in 1993.
Norris’s plea to transfer from category C Dartmoor Prison in Devon was rejected by Justice Secretary Dominic Raab amid concerns he is still a threat to the public, The Mirror reports .
A source confirmed that Norris’s application was rejected by Mr Raab and never made it as far as the parole board.
A Ministry of Justice source said: ‘The Justice Secretary is clear that dangerous offenders can’t move before they’ve proved they’re no longer a risk.’
David Norris, now 45, was jailed for life in 2012 alongside Gary Dobson, 46, for the murder of 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence in southeast London in 1993
Stephen Lawrence, 18, was waiting at a bus stop in Eltham, southeast London, with friend Duwayne Brooks when he was set upon by a gang of racist thugs
Norris’s 14 year minimum sentence will be completed by 2026, at which time he will be legally entitled to apply to the Parole Board for release.
Stephen Lawrence was attacked by a gang of racist thugs alongside friend Duwayne Brooks as they waited at a bus stop in Eltham, southeast London, in 1993.
Norris and and Gary Dobson, 46, were the only gang members who were ever brought to justice of Lawrence’s murder, with police failures attributed to institutional racism in the damning MacPherson Inquiry of 1999.
An undercover police surveillance operation based in Dobson’s flat in Footscray Road, Eltham, came to be known as the ‘Footscray’ evidence and revealed the pair’s racist views.
Norris and Dobson along with other alleged gang members Neil Acourt, Jamie Acourt and Luke Knight were famously named in a Daily Mail front page splash in 1997 under the headline ‘Murderers’.
It was only in 2012, after a forensic breakthrough, that Norris and Dobson were convicted at the Old Bailey.
Norris has failed in his attempt to be transferred from category C HMP Dartmoor (pictured) in Devon to an open prison
Sentencing the pair at the Old Bailey, Mr Justice Treacy told the defendants he had to deal with them as if they were juveniles, not adults, because they were 17 and 16 at the time they joined the mob which attacked and killed Stephen that night.
He also had to set the term in accordance with practice in 1993 – ten years before the Criminal Justice Act allowed stiffer sentences for such crimes.
Addressing both defendants, he said: ‘The murder of Stephen Lawrence was a terrible and evil crime. Recently the Lord Chief Justice described it as a “murder which scarred the conscience of the nation”.
‘A totally innocent 18-year-old youth on the threshold of a promising life was brutally cut down in the street in front of eye witnesses by a racist thuggish gang. You were both members of that gang.
‘I have no doubt at all that you fully subscribed to its views and attitudes. The covert Footscray DVD with its disgusting and shocking scenes and the nature of the attack itself convince me of that.
‘The crime was committed for no other reason than racial hatred. You did not know Stephen Lawrence or Duwayne Brooks. Neither of them had done anything to harm, threaten or offend you… apart from being black and making their way peaceably to the bus stop on their way home.’
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