"Guilty". "Guilty".
Declan Harvey shares the experience of seeing Stephen Lawrence’s killers convicted of murder at the Old Bailey.
5 Jan 2012, 11:00
Court 16 at the Old Bailey is one of the biggest in the building but it’s not as large a room as you might imagine.
The judge’s bench looks down on three rows of long tables from behind which wig-clad barristers stare up at him. Behind them is a single row of seats available for family or police officers. The back of these seats touch the front of the large, glass-fronted dock.
It’s a raised compartment which allows direct access to the cells via a green leather upholstered door.
To the right of the courtroom (from the judge’s perspective) is the jury box, and further along the press box. To the left, up above, the public gallery which has its own independent entrance. There is additional seating for the court’s use below the balcony. The walls are wood panelled in a rich golden brown.
Gary Dobson and David Norris have sat just feet away from me for seven weeks. Dobson looks remarkably like he does in his prison photo (the one on every front page this week). Norris is weedier in real life. They both wore 3-piece-suits each day – except during sentencing when Gary Dobson opted for jeans.
Their faces have remained stony, but I was always amazed at how relaxed their gaze was. They seemed confident.
On the morning of the verdict (Tuesday, 3/1/12) the jury returned to their seats. The 4 women and 8 men looked sullen, monochrome and tired. Their duties had not only been brain intensive and extensive but their Christmas and New Year had also been railroaded by the schedule set by the judge. Incidentally their hard work has won them 25 years of jury immunity.
Before they re-entered the court, Mr Justice Treacy warned us to be absolutely silent during the process. He called for “dignity” and asked for as little movement or reaction as possible.
For two and a half days the cavernous lobby of the Central Criminal Court had echoed with the sound of bored journalists kicking their heels until word came that a verdict was decided upon. We had literally five minutes warning to get in our seats. The mood was muted but electric.
Dobson and Norris were ordered to stand. The foreman of the jury was then asked to reveal the verdicts separately. My heart was pounding.
Dobson first: “Guilty”, then Norris “Guilty”. Norris gave no reaction, none at all. Dobson’s head dropped a little to the right. I suspect they couldn’t believe their 18-year lucky streak had ended.
Amazingly the court did stay deathly still, deathly silent. I imagine mainly because no one wanted to miss a word. There are no microphones so even the rustle of a coat can disturb the room. Only discreet finger movements allowed the news to filter out via Twitter. But silent and quite still the court remained. It was eerie. My mind was racing – what an extraordinary moment, after all these years! “Did no-one just hear what I heard?!” I thought.
For better or worse, deserve it or not, I think you’d have to be emotionally dead not to find the experience profound, shocking and even a little upsetting. There were many people in the room with me whose lives were being catapulted in a new extraordinary direction.
“Take them down”. They were taken down. Walking less than two feet from me Norris had a heavy but brisk plod. Dobson swaggered – he gave a parting shot to the jury “you’ve condemned an innocent man”.
Tears rolled down the faces of the Lawrence family. I can’t begin to imagine the kaleidoscope of their emotions. Doreen and Neville have separated since Stephen’s death. They had little interaction in court.
The public gallery was ordered clear. I heard a woman’s tearful voice protest they were innocent, insisting “They didn’t kill that man”. In a strange and unsentimental fact of life “that man’s” family and friends were sitting in the seats in front of her - how closely both sides co-exist in a courtroom.
Thursday morning. We reassembled an hour later than normal: 1130am. Overnight the judge had read impact statements from four members of the Lawrence family. All twelve jurors volunteered to return and see the curtain come down on this epic drama.
The murderers – as they can now be called – took their seats.
“This was a terrible and evil crime” began the judge. He went on to say he was absolutely convinced the verdict was the correct one and that Dobson and Norris were most certainly part of the 5-strong gang of racist thugs.
The atmosphere was tense. As I looked up from my cramped pitch on the press bench I saw Dobson’s mother and father, Pauline and Stephen. She appeared like a woman about to have a bucket of cold water poured over her: shoulders up, head down, face tense, eyes closed. She held hands with her defiant husband.
Mr Justice Treacy went to great lengths to explain the “galling”* sentences he was about to hand down. As both men were under eighteen when they attacked Stephen, so they would be treated as juveniles now.
Dobson listened, with no expression whatsoever: “15 years and 2 months”
Norris appeared equally vanilla: “14 years and 3 months”. A year less than Dobson acknowledging the fact he is/was a year younger than his then 16 year old co-attacker.
Both men were escorted back through the leather-clad door from whence they came. Norris turned and gave a thumbs-up to a relative in the gallery. Dobson left the room to the sound of his father shouting at the jury – “you should be ashamed of yourselves”. I doubt they will be.
As I left court, Sky News’ Tom Parmenter walked behind me. As we passed Neville Lawrence, Tom delicately asked if the sentences were similar to what he’d expected. Neville smiled, unenthused, and nodded his head.
And that, oddly, was it. The sense of occasion evaporated. From the press point of view there was work to be done. From the family point of view... well... who knows? The re-adjustment will take some time, I imagine.
Very quickly, outside court, attention turned to “the others”. The three high-profile co-accused who still are thought to live in south east London – one reportedly under a pseudonym inspired by his mother’s maiden name, Stuart.
The Met Police Commissioner provided helpful sound bites: “we’ll never give up the hunt/they should not sleep easy” and such like. But in reality I can’t imagine much will happen. There are no active lines of inquiry despite the case remaining open. Since the beginning of the trial allegedly five people have come forward with new evidence. We’ll see what that amounts to in due course.
But it will, I suspect, take greater effort to keep momentum in this investigation than many imagine. The risk is officers feel this conviction has got them off the hook. ‘Better some convicted than none, job done’ they could say. I hope not. I like Neville Lawrence I look forward to returning to the Old Bailey next year to see three further hard-men walk towards that leather door.
*a description used by family friends outside the Old Bailey after sentencing.
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