Sunshine not spears ended woolly rhinos
Neville Lawrence tells how marriage fell apart after son’s racist killing
EXTINCT
Woolly rhino
WOOLLY rhinos were wiped out by climate change rather than overhunting, a study found.
Researchers sequenced ancient DNA found in 14 specimens.
They discovered that the woolly rhinoceros population remained “stable and diverse” until only a few thousand years before it disappeared from Siberia.
At that time, temperatures probably rose too high for them.
Edana Lord, of the Centre for Palaeogenetics, in Stockholm, Sweden, said: “We’re coming away from the idea of humans taking over everything as soon as they come into an environment.
“We suggest that the woolly rhinoceros’s extinction was more likely related to climate.”
JAILED Gary Dobson got life for the murder
JAILED David Norris was also locked up
ACQUITTED But Neil Acourt jailed over drugs
DRUGS Brother Jamie jailed for same drug plot
Neville and Doreen divorced six years after their loss
GRIEVING Stephen’s mum Doreen is now a Labour peer
ACQUITTED Knight had private prosecution
FURIOUS
Furious Neville added: “A woman came to our house [soon after the murder] with the names of the killers written on a piece of paper. When Doreen gave it to the officer in charge he threw it in the bin. So I was thinking, ‘If only you’d done your job properly we wouldn’t be sitting here now’.
“This might be the end of the line for them, but it certainly isn’t the end for me. As long as I’m alive, I’m not going to accept this is over.”
Gary Dobson and David Norris are serving life terms for the murder in Eltham, South East London, having been convicted after a DNA breakthrough in 2012.
Dobson, Neil Acourt and Luke Knight had been acquitted in a private prosecution brought by Stephen’s parents in 1996. Neil and brother Jamie Acourt, the fifth suspect, have since served jail time for drug dealing.
Neville, who has an OBE, also questioned whether the Met Police had truly reformed after the Macpherson report found the force was institutionally racist.
The report, launched in the wake of the botched probe into Stephen’s murder, included 70 recommendations to end racism in police ranks.
Referring to a recent incident in which Labour’s Dawn Butler was pulled over by police, he said: “Why are black MPs being stopped? How can you tell me it’s not the same police force that existed in 1993? That it treats people equally?”
But Dame Cressida denied the Met is institutionally racist. She said the force has zero tolerance on racism, and said an officer was sacked last week for racist conduct.
She added: “I think we’ve come a very, very, very long way.”