Lawrence suspect’s working in canteen
Thug serving food ready for his release from jail
STEPHEN Lawrence murder suspect Neil Acourt has landed a cushy job as a cook as he prepares to be freed from jail.
The 43-year-old is one of the five race-hate thugs accused of the killing by the Daily Mail in 1997.
He is due to be released from prison on Monday, half way through a six-year drugs sentence. In preparation for his release from Hollesley Bay open jail near Woodbridge in Suffolk, the father of one has been working as a cook at a nearby conference centre open to the public.
Pictures show the thug, once filmed threatening to ‘chop up n***ers’, preparing food in a canteen where he has worked four days a week on day release. He can be seen stirring a pot on a stove and serving food, although it is claimed his duties have been mainly limited to ‘food presentation’.
The centre is steeped in history but for security reasons, the Mail is not naming it.
Last year it celebrated black history month to ‘recognise and celebrate the achievements of black and ethnic minority groups’. Acourt, of Eltham, south east London, was jailed for six years and three months in February 2017 for his role in a £4million cannabis plot.
He spent a year on remand before being sentenced and is being freed on licence after serving just over three years behind bars. The shaven-headed yob, who now uses his mother’s maiden name Stuart, was one of five men arrested over the mur- der of 18-year- old Stephen in Eltham in 1993. But he was never convicted and has always denied involvement.
In 1994 a police surveillance operation filmed him making appalling racist remarks about black people with fellow gang member Luke Knight.
He was recorded saying: ‘I reckon every n***er should be chopped up, mate, and should be left with nothing but f****** stumps.’ He and Knight also praised Enoch Powell. Acourt was the regarded leader of by the detectives Lawrence as ‘murder gang’. At his family home a few minutes from the murder scene, officers found weapons including a Gurkhatype dagger and a sword. Following the killing he was repeatedly in trouble with the police. In 2002, he and fellow gang member David Norris were each jailed for 18 months for a racist attack on an off- duty black detective. Last December his younger brother Jamie Acourt, 42, got nine years over the cannabis plot after going on the run for more than two years. Just two members of the gang suspected of murdering Stephen have been brought to justice. Gary convicted Dobson and and jailed Norris for life were in 2012. Luke Knight continues to protest his innocence. A Prison and Probation Service spokesman said: ‘No offenders are let out to work on day release until they have undergone a thorough risk assessment.’
‘Half way through drugs sentence’