Diane Abbott

I wasnt going to jump on you (I'm a married woman); I was just interested in your opinion.

How - how??? - is that even remotely relevant to your original premise that the trial and subsequent conviction of Dobson and Norris was a dubious one based on flimsy forensic evidence?

ETA: what Sange said ^^^

Why's that Sange?, this is all information freely available, not things that I have made up,

WSS.

You first said that you wouldn't have found them guilty as you don't think there was enough evidence, yet you make those comments based on hearsay and gossip?

Diane Abbot is in a position of influence and should be more careful what she says on twitter. Regardless of what context its taken in, some comments will more often than not offend someone and if you are in a position of power you should be careful what you say full stop. I think that as an anti-racism campaigner, her sweeping generalisations of 'white people' or 'black people' are only serving to further divide ethnic groups. Surely if you preach anti racisim it should mean you include everyone as one group of people, as opposed to divide them into 'black, white, asian' etc. For this reason I think the best thing she can do is apologise and step down.

On the subject of racism, its alive and kicking and I personally dont think it will ever go away. Not completely. The main reason being that some parents who have prejudices against other races, religions etc will pass these onto their children who in turn will either agree or disagree. Sadly, many of them will agree.

The issue is not the prejudice per se, its the way it is dealt with and publicised.

I have no prejudices, to me a person is a person, i dont judge on race or religion. If you are a c*nt you are a c*nt. Black white or other! I just wish everyone else felt the same!

Surely if SL was a drug dealer they would have used that as a defence in the court case to try to make out it wasn't a race crime?

As I say, not stuff I have made up - all available freely on the internet for ANYONE to see.

Duwayne Brookes

October 1993 Surrendered voluntarily to Bexleyheath police station, where he was charged under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act, relating to an allegation of violent disorder at a British National party march. Eventually the proceedings were stayed on December 13 1994 after the judge ruled an abuse of process. The judge had invited the CPS to discontinue the case earlier, but it refused to do so.

May 27 1998 Police requested an interview about an allegation of kidnapping at Catford station. He was bailed until July 23 when police announced that they were taking no further action.

July 8 1998 Stopped under the Prevention of Terrorism Act in the City of London. Searched and arrested for possession of a knife and theft of a credit card. Bailed from the police station and when he returned on August 4 was charged with possession of an offensive weapon. The action was discontinued in September.

July 4 1999 Stopped by police in in his car, which was searched. A photocopying tool was found (he works as a photocopying engineer). Police alleged it was an offensive weapon and charged him with possession of a bladed article. They also found credit cards and chequebooks in the car and he was arrested for handling stolen goods. He was bailed to appear before Tower Bridge magistrates. The case was discontinued on August 3.

August 17 1999 Arrested in Peckham, south London, for taking and driving away a car and threatening behaviour. Taken to Peckham police station and bailed until August 6, when police notified him that they were taking no further action.

September 16 1999 Arrested and charged with attempted rape and indecent assault. Originally refused bail by police and court. Finally bailed on September 29 on condition he resided in Birmingham. At his committal hearing on November 5 police announced they had dropped the charge of attempted rape.

I didn't say you had made it up, I was pointing out that it has not been proven.

Just because something is on the internet, that most certainly does not mean that it's true!

Edited Chippers quote out...

All that shows is that someone has a grudge against him.

Strange that the only websites that say that SL was a drug dealer are ones that I wouldn't click on...

Wtvf has any of that got to do with the murder of SL?

Chippers. If I'm right, your point is not that they were innocent of murder, but that the attack was not a racial one?

WSS!

And WTVF has any of this got to do with Diane Abbot?!!

wtvf has it got to do with Diane Abbott? ?

Ah you beat me to it!

"It's still a racist area; they still make up stories of Stephen Lawrence being a drug dealer to condone what the animals did to him."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/04/stephen-lawrence-murder-eltham-still-racist?newsfeed=true

The problem is absolutely nothing to do with the veracity (or not) of what you are saying about Stephen Lawrence and associates.

You objected to the conviction on the basis it was "a fit up" (I have some sympathy for that position, at least willing to debate it) and that the "evidence was flimsy" (agree). You then seek to suggest that, at least in some part, that the character of Stephen Lawrence might be used as mitigation for their crime? You may not have meant it like that but that's the way it read to me.

I apologise if that's the case. I am not and will never be racist as I think humans are all individuals and responsible for their own actions which is why I said "some" and "may" because they are just presumptions on my part and I don't know what goes on in other peoples minds.

Even though we grew up near each other, I don't remember coming across any racism as a child. The first thing I remember as being a race issue was that everyone was saying it was unfair that one of the Asian girls came to school in whatever she wanted whilst everyone else had to wear uniform. There were very few minority groups where I gre up and I would say less than 5% of my school were from minority groups.

I know from news reports how bad it can be in other ares of the city though.

A little bit more about Duwayne Brooks...

http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/apr/06/race.lawrence?cat=world&type=article

I've skim read that, it's very interesting. I'll confess that I don't know much about the SL case as I was too young when it happened and I try to avoid newspapers. But I watched Tuesday night documentary last night and the whole case is just heart breaking.

Chippers - The 'evidence' against DB that you posted contains nothing dated before the attack so what on earth does it have to do with it? I don't know what point you're trying to prove by posting that?

I posted the link to show Chippers that Duwayne might not be as bad as they are making out, hopefully they'll go back and edit their posts....

There's no point because people have quoted Chippers.

I doubt it.

Tbh, I had a feeling that Chippers was male so to play it safe I didn't refer to them as him or her. ?

Chippers is a man - he's been around a while ?!?

I am indeed a male, possibly the only one around !?!

Let me repsond to the OP first.

Dianne Abbott is an absolute NUMPTY for what she's said and generalisation is offensive. I do not condone her behaviour in any way and I strongly believe that she should reconsider her position. If you hold unjustified views in which you group a race of people together then you are a racist. Doesn't matter if you are black, white or green. It seems her statement may have been taken out of context but only SHE knows if she hold views like that and if she does she should not be in the position she is.

Whilst reading some of the comments about Stephen Lawrence, I had to laugh.

Let's be clear about the so called "shoddy" evidence. It was forensic. END OF. There was NO chance of cross contamination and the "stich-up" quoted was the imprisonment of two racist, violent thugs.

Duwayne Brooks was 16 at the time of the attack, and like other people have said, all these offences were committed after that. If he is guilty of any of these crimes then, he too, should be bought to justice.

The failings of the Met in investigating this case is not going to swept under the carpet with an apology. The Metropolitan Police Service was found to be institutionally racist. The cases that collapsed before this are mainly to do with that fact, not because the two murderers were not guilty.

I find it somewhat laughable that people can condone the behaviour of someone who is wrong both legally and morally.

Simply impossible to say this. I'm a scientist and I'd never claim that any result I produced was incontrovertible. I'm not in any way saying they didn't do it, just that evidence down not necessarily equal truth.

Fair dues FTLOMB, but wasn't it a scientist that stated that in court that there was no likely hood that the items had been cross-contaminated?

I haven't seen any court transcripts but I suspect, happy to be corrected, that the testimony may have been phrased more that in his/her expert opinion, there was no likelihood that the items had been cross-contaminated. I'm more reserved about the value of DNA evidence though - jurors tend to overvalue it, seeing it as a clear indication of guilt, when, in reality, it can be as circumstantial as a fingerprint. The only thing you can say for sure from a blood spatter on a shirt is that the the shirt was present at the time of the blood spattering. That's without getting into the statisitical possibility of mistakes in DNA identification in the first place.

Again, I'm not saying these guys aren't guilty, just meandering over the more technical aspects of the trial.

This is enough for me, not a jury , but for me personally.

This is without the constant change in statements from defendants, police corruption and changing alibi's.

Ohhh nooo, I don't think I worded that very well. I didn't mean to suggest you're any degree of racist, more to point out that it's actually quite easy to inadvertently say something which has connotations of racism because there's an inherent, deeply ingrained tension between people of different ethnicities still very much alive today, which I blame on the fact that we haven't addressed the historical atrocities inflicted by any one group on another. As you pointed out, we may well learn WHAT happened, but rarely why it happened or what we should learn from it. Does that make more sense? I've had a very poorly head today and not been at my most coherent!