Forensic evidence "does not prove who stabbed and killed Stephen Lawrence", a court heard yesterday (December 21).

Tiny traces of blood and textile fibres found on a jacket and a cardigan seized from Gary Dobson's house are present due to contamination, an Old Bailey jury was told.

Timothy Roberts, for Dobson, said in his closing speech that the forensic findings did not fit with the rest of the evidence in the case.

He urged the jury to assess "the wider context of all the evidence in the case not just with tunnel vision down a microscope".

Mr Roberts said: "The Achilles heel of this prosecution is that the accusations that have been made have been driven by the microscopic viewpoint, and the prosecution have struggled to make those accusations fit with the wider picture given by the rest of the evidence in the case as a whole."

No eyewitnesses had given any identification evidence suggesting that Dobson was involved in the attack, the jury was told.

The defence claims that Dobson never wore a Supertramp jacket upon which key evidence was found, and that another key exhibit, a cardigan, belonged to his father.

Mr Roberts said: "He didn't choose it, he didn't fancy it... he was not a Supertramp fan, he wore it before and was ridiculed. He never wore it again."

Gary Dobson, 36, and David Norris, 35, both of south London, deny murdering Mr Lawrence who was stabbed to death by a racist white gang near a bus stop in April 1993.