Ex-Lawrence suspect to pay £6,000 over £4m drug racket
A FORMER suspect in the murder of Stephen Lawrence was ordered to pay just £6,000 yesterday for his part in a £4million drugs racket.
Neil Acourt, 42, had feared he would be hit with a bill for about £900,000 at a proceeds of crime hearing.
A judge was told he was the “top man” in a plot to supply high-quality cannabis to South Shields, near Newcastle.
Acourt had been among five youths who were suspected of attacking 18-year-old Stephen near a bus stop in Eltham, south London, in April 1993.
He was arrested over the killing and charged with fellow suspects Gary Dobson and Luke Knight in an ill-fated private prosecution at the Old Bailey. The case collapsed in 1996. At yesterday’s proceeds of crime hearing at London’s Kingston Crown Court, Judge Susan Tapping accepted the drugs racket benefit to Acourt and his accomplices was £750,000.
She also heard how the father-ofone has only £6,000 in “realisable Victim... Stephen Lawrence
mother’s 25-year fight for justice ends
IT HAS lasted 25 years, cost at least £50million and triggered a raft of police reforms.
But the inquiry into the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence is finally over.
Stephen’s mother, Baroness Lawrence, has urged Scotland Yard to shut down the investigation as there are now no new leads.
Baroness Lawrence, 65, said: “I can’t keep doing this. I just want time for me – time to reflect. assets”. Dressed in a prison-issue tracksuit, the drug dealer breathed a sigh of relief as Judge Tapping ordered him to pay that amount.
Acourt, now known as Neil Stuart, must pay up in three months or face a further four months in jail.
He was sentenced to six years and three months in prison last year after admitting conspiracy to supply class B drugs.
Police sources believe the racket was worth about £4million. Recorder “I’ve been on the go for 25 years. I haven’t stopped.
“I don’t think I’ve even completely grieved for Stephen.
“If you spend 25 years fighting for justice, where do you find the time?”
The 1999 Macpherson Inquiry into the initial investigation branded the Metropolitan Police “institutionally racist”.
Senior officers said on Wednesday that the inquiry is unlikely to progress any farther. Paul Clements described the plot as a planned and concerted effort to move substantial amounts of cannabis between London and the North-east.
Acourt, his father-in-law Jack Vose, 64, childhood friend James Botton, 46, Lee Birks, 56, Paul Beavers, 50, and Daniel Thompson, 29, had all admitted running the cannabis racket between 2014 and 2016.
Acourt, who is in the same Kent open prison as M25 road rage killer Kenneth Noye – Standford Hill on the Isle of Sheppey – was made the subject of a Serious Crime Prevention Order.
He must tell police about any cars he buys, any salary or income, assets worth over £1,000 and money transfers of more than £500.
The Stephen Lawrence murder in 1993 shocked the nation.
Witnesses told the Old Bailey how the teenager was “swallowed up and forced to the ground” as five white youths swarmed around him. Terrified Stephen was stabbed twice in the body but still managed to get up and run away as his cowardly attackers fled the scene.
After a short distance, Stephen collapsed and bled to death.
Acourt’s friends Dobson, now 42, and David Norris, 41, denied murder but were found guilty in January 2012.
The pair were jailed for life.