FROM their teens to adulthood, both of Stephen Lawrence's killers have shown a propensity for sickening racism and criminality.

Dobson is currently serving a five year sentence he was given on July 7 2010 for dealing £350,000 worth of cannabis. Then 34, he had been filmed delivering ten boxes of drugs to a lay-by for a drug dealer.

In 2002, Norris was jailed for 18 months after he and Neil Acourt, another of the orginal Lawrence murder suspects, were convicted of a race hate attack.

On the same road where Mr Lawrence was killed, Norris hurled a fast-food drink at Detective Constable Gareth Reid and shouted "n****r", while Neil Acourt drove a red Renault Clio at him.

The prosecution said the duo had been motivated "by virtue of one reason and one reason alone - his colour".

Immediately after the Lawrence murder, Dobson and Norris, then in their teens, were named by callers to the police investigation as being part of a gang which were known to carry knives in the area.

Police searches in May 1993 uncovered a hammer head suspended from a strap under some clothing in Norris's bedroom. At Dobson's girlfriend's bedroom, a large knife was found.

Prior to the Lawrence murder in May 1992, Norris was alleged to have been involved in assaulting two brothers, one of whom was stabbed with a butterfly knife. No charges were ever brought.

In April 1993, police also investigated whether Dobson had threatened Kevin London, a 16-year-old black teenager, with a knife the previous November. Again, no charges were brought and Dobson denied involvement.

The Macpherson inquiry report also highlighted allegations that Norris's gangster father had been involved in trying to corrupt a trial in which his son was accused of attempted murder - the stabbing of Stacey Benefield with a miniature sword in Eltham in March 1993.

The report concluded: "The strong inference is that Clifford Norris, David Norris' father, was behind that corruption and that he was closely involved in trying to pervert the course of justice by bribing Stacey Benefield and another witness."

Norris was eventually acquitted in November 1993.

The boy's father - since convicted of importing drugs and jailed for nine-and-a-half years - also cast a long shadow over the Lawrence murder investigation.

The Macpherson report highlighted police fears that potential witnesses "held back because they knew of Clifford Norris' existence and close interest in his son's welfare".

Detective Sergeant Bill Mellish also told the inquiry that the youths may have given no comment interviews to police and attempted to foil police surveillance because they had been "schooled" by Clifford Norrs.

That police surveillance led to video footage of the gang at Dobson's Footscray Road home, showing vile racist rants by the group, along with the men brandishing knives.

Norris was recorded ranting: "If I was going to kill myself do you know what I'd do? I'd go and kill every black c**t, every p**i, every copper, every mug that I know.

"I'd go down to Catford and places like that I'm telling you now with two sub-machine guns and I'm telling you I'd take one of them, skin the black c**t alive mate, torture him, set him alight.

"I'd blow their two legs and arms off and say go on you can swim home now."

Dobson was heard saying: "He said the f*****g black b*****d I am going to kill him. I cracked up laughing. I went what black geezer. He went the wimpy one the f*****g black n****r c**t, f*****g black b*****d. I went what the P**i."

These images, shown again at the trial and previously broadcast on national TV, remain one of the most disturbing images of the Lawrence suspects.

The other could be their appearance at his inquest. While there, all five of the men gave no evidence, claiming "privilege".

Their smug, swaggering appearances at the 1998 inquiry, and a subsequent scuffle outside the building showed to the public the five men's arrogance and, in Dobson and Norris, two killers who thought they had escaped justice.