Police tracked Acourt’s lover

DETECTIVES tailed the girlfriend of fugitive Jamie Acourt during a trip to Spain in the hope of tracking him down, it emerged yesterday.

According to a source involved in the manhunt, Terri Dean, the mother of Acourt’s two children, was watched by Spanish detectives during a Costa holiday to see if she met him. Although she appeared to have no contact with her long-term boyfriend – pictured above after his arrest – it is an indication of the police’s determination to get their man.

Acourt was finally arrested in Barcelona on Friday after nearly two years on the run. He is not challenging extradition over his alleged involvement in a £4million cannabis plot and could be back in Britain within days.

The 41-year-old, one of five men who were accused of murdering Stephen Lawrence in 1993, has been wanted by Scotland Yard since fleeing Britain in 2016.

His arrest came in a joint operation by the UK’s National Crime Agency and Spain’s National Police fugitives’ unit.

Acourt, from Eltham, south- east London, was arrested by five undercover officers after he had been to a gym with a friend. The source said the officers swooped when the friend went to the toilet. Acourt claimed he was an Italian tourist before police took his fingerprints.