Lawrence suspect faces jail over £4m cannabis ring

ONE of the racist thugs accused of killing Stephen Lawrence was the mastermind behind a £4million cannabis smuggling ring, it has emerged.

Neil Acourt, 40, faces up to seven years in prison after admitting running a gang that couriered 200lb loads of the class B drug between London and Newcastle.

Acourt and his brother Jamie, who likened themselves to the Krays, were among five youths arrested over the murder of 18year-old Stephen, but they were never convicted.

All five were named by the Daily Mail as Stephen’s killers.

Now it can be revealed that Neil Acourt, his father-in-law Jack Vose, 62, and five others ran a massive country-wide drugs racket between January 2014 and February this year.

Sarah Przybylska, prosecuting, told Kingston Crown Court Acourt was the gang’s ringleader. Police launched a major surveillance operation in August 2014 and captured him on camera receiving carrier bags of cash as the gang completed the 600-mile round trip several times a month.

Acourt was 16 when Stephen was stabbed to death at a bus stop in Eltham, London, in April 1993. Two of the original suspects, Gary Dobson and David Norris, were jailed for life for the murder in 2012.

A new appeal into Stephen’s murder was broadcast by the BBC’s Crimewatch last week.