Doreen Lawrence: I don’t forgive Stephen’s murderers
This article was written by David Batty, for The Guardian on Thursday 5th January 2012 01.38 UTC
Stephen Lawrence’s mother, Doreen, has said she could not have faced living had Gary Dobson and David Norris been found not guilty of her son’s murder.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, Lawrence said she hoped the pair suffered “as many sleepless nights as I have had over the years”.
She said: “Until now they thought they had got away with murder. I don’t think I would have been able to live with a not-guilty verdict. I would have preferred no trial rather than go through all this for nothing.”
She condemned Norris’s mother, Teresa, for shouting from the public gallery in the Old Bailey that her son had not killed anyone. “Teresa Norris has always shown me contempt, as if I’m accusing her son wrongfully. But how would she feel, as a mother, if it was her son who’d lost his life for the colour of his skin?” she said.
She expressed hope that Dobson and Norris would eventually give up the other suspects in her son’s murder.
“They will always be at the back of my mind. I don’t forgive them, no. You can only forgive somebody when they have shown remorse and accepted what they have done – and they haven’t.”
The decision to sentence Dobson and Norris as minors because they were 17 and 16 at the time of the murder also drew criticism from Lawrence.
“They took my son’s life, so I feel they should be given life with a minimum of 20 years,” she said.
“Their age had nothing to do with it. They had the same mindset at 16 and 17 that they probably still have now. ”
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