Tears as best friend recalls Stephen Lawrence’s dying moments

The Lawrence family remained composed as Duwayne Brooks gave an emotional account of how the confused and fatally wounded Mr Lawrence asked him what had happened.

Sobs could be heard coming from the public gallery as Mr Brooks broke down during his testimony.

The 37-year-old, who gave evidence at the Old Bailey despite his father dying last night, said: “He jumps up and for a second I was relieved that nothing had happened and we ran up the road and we were running, and he kept asking me to tell him what was wrong because he can’t run properly. Blood was streaming out around his neck and through his jacket.”

The pair, who had known each other since they were 11, were set upon by a gang of white attackers in Eltham, south east London in April 1993.

Mr Brooks told the court that he saw Mr Lawrence being attacked with a weapon that looked “shiny”.

He said: “I don’t know if you could call him the leader, but the guy who had the weapon, ran straight into him and, wham, just like that.”

He raised his right arm to show the jury a striking motion.

He went on: “When I was being chased he had like a metal bar in his hand, and when I ran back he hit Stephen with the bar. He was getting up and he hit him which made him go back down.”

Prosecutor Mark Ellison QC asked: “Did you see whereabouts?”

Mr Brooks answered: “It looked like he hit him in his head.”

Mr Brooks sobbed as he looked at a picture of the scene and described his best friend’s dying word to him.

He told a hushed courtroom: “He said one more time ‘Duwayne’ and his voice was funny and he fell at that tree.”

Mr Lawrence’s parents, Doreen and Neville, sat silently at the back of the court listening intently to the evidence.

Their son Stuart sat between them and appeared to wipe away a tear with his hand.

The defendants made notes in the dock. Norris was wearing a hearing loop.

Mr Brooks, wearing a blue shirt and tie, told the court violence broke out after the attackers had hurled racist abuse at him and his friend.

“These guys have come across the road and one of them said, ‘what what nigger’.”

Mr Brooks said he felt “threatened” and warned Mr Lawrence to run.

Asked to describe the group, he said: “At the time all I could say was they were all white, they were about the same age and they were all wearing jeans.”

He said the person who shouted the racist remark at him had worn a grey bomber jacket with white strips on either side.

Mr Brooks said he had suffered post traumatic stress disorder after seeing his friend killed.

Gary Dobson, 36, and David Norris, 35, both of south London, deny murdering Mr Lawrence.

In cross-examination, Mr Brooks said he had remembered extra details of the attack months afterwards.

He said: “I made a statement some months after when I began to remember other parts of the incident which for some reason I couldn’t remember because it was too distressing, it was too scary to remember and it was very upsetting.”

In his original statement made to police on the night of the murder, Mr Brooks had not mentioned the man with the bar, but he was included in a later account, the court heard.