Fatally injured but unaware he was dying: Witnesses tell how they prayed over Stephen Lawrence as his life slipped away

• Teenager gasped for air then seemed 'peaceful' as ambulance arrived
• Victim's best friend Duwayne Brooks insisted on giving evidence today - even though his father died last night
• He claims Stephen was stabbed with a 'foot-long' knife
  
• One of Stephen's wounds was 13cm deep. The other was 12cm
  
• First police officer on the scene claims Mr Brooks 'didn't witness the assault'
  

By Sara Nelson for MailOnline
Updated: 12:27 EST, 17 November 2011

Stephen Lawrence died after he was stabbed twice

A passer-by has told the jury how he prayed over Stephen Lawrence after seeing the fatally injured teenager ‘crash’ to the ground.

Conor Taaffe said Stephen clutched his chest and fell face first to the floor.

In a statement read to the court Mr Taaffe, who had left a church meeting with his wife in Well Hall Road, said he tried to comfort Stephen and prayed for him as he slumped on the pavement.

He said: 'I was holding his head and back and prayed over him in a whisper and said things like "bless him Lord Jesus".'

His wife Louise said Stephen looked 'peaceful' as she waited for the police and ambulance crews to arrive.

The court heard the couple had left the church at 10.35pm and saw Duwayne Brooks and Stephen in Well Hall Road, running towards them from the opposite direction.

Mr Taaffe said Stephen was about three to six-foot behind Duwayne who trying to 'egg on' his friend to run faster.

'I got the feeling this wasn't a leisurely jog but there was a specific purpose about it,' he told police in a statement on April 25 1993.

'I saw Stephen bending forward from the middle as he was running. He was holding his upper chest with one hand, I think it was his left hand on the right side of his chest.

'I saw no one else around walking in the vicinity.'

Mr Taaffe said he sensed the two men were 'running away from something' but could not see anyone or anything else about.

'Seconds later I saw Stephen crash on to the pavement,' he said.

'What grabbed my attention was the noise of the fall and he collapsed face first, face down on the pavement.'

Mr Taaffe said he 'sensed danger' and had not wanted to stop because he thought it may have been a ploy by the men to rob him and his wife or that Stephen was playing a prank on his friend.

The couple continued walking but stopped again when they heard a car tyre screeching in the road and decided to go to his aid.

Stephen was face down on the pavement with his left leg slightly bent and his right arm bent at the elbow in front of him.

Mr Taaffe and his wife bent down to speak to him, while Duwayne was frantically trying to call for help at a phone box.

'I put my right hand on his back and left hand on his head. I could feel he was still breathing as his back was moving up and down.'

A court artist's drawing of Duwayne Brooks giving evidence at the Old Bailey today. Mr Brooks raised his right arm to show the jury a striking motion (left) as he described the moment Stephen was attacked. He wept and covered his face with his hand (right)

Both he and his wife said Mr Brooks seemed confused as they tried to talk to him. Mrs Taaffe described him as 'hysterical, virtually screaming rather than talking'.

Mr Taaffe said: 'Louise asked Duwayne what had happened and he said "some white boys got him".
'He also said one of them had a bar, he may have said an iron bar.'

The couple stayed with Stephen and Duwayne while police and paramedics arrived. Mrs Taaffe said Stephen had at first been 'breathing and gasping for air'.

'At no point did he struggle or speak,' she said. 'He seemed very peaceful.'

Mr Taaffe said an ambulance arrived at the scene at 10.52pm and he helped put Stephen on to a stretcher.

He said in his statement: 'One of the paramedics checked his eyes and pulse, he said 'nothing' and shook his head.'

The court was also read a statement from James Geddis, an off-duty police officer based at Plumstead, made in March 2000, in which he claimed that Mr Brooks said he 'didn't want the f***ing police'.

He said: 'He appeared very agitated and he was swearing, he was actually shouting. I decided because of his behaviour not to disclose I was a police officer.'

When a patrol car arrived, he told the court Mr Brooks said: 'We don't need the f***ing police, why are they here?'

The officer said Stephen had been 'bleeding quite heavily' and he had traced the trail of blood back to the junction of Dickson Road.

'I saw a black bag and a lot of blood nearby,' he added.

PC Bethel, who was first on the scene with PC Antony Gleason, said Mr Brooks had seemed 'excited and upset' when she arrived.

'He told me he had told his friend Stephen to run with him away from youths. He ran off but Stephen must have been hit by them.

'He didn't witness the assault and couldn't tell me what the youths looked like. All he could tell me was that they ran off down Dickson Road.'

Asked by Tim Roberts, QC for Dobson, whether the statement was accurate, PC Bethel replied: 'Yes. That was what he conveyed to me at the scene.'

This afternoon's evidence came after a morning session in which Mr Brooks broke down as he relived the events of the night his best friend was killed.

Other sobs could be heard in the Old Bailey courtroom as the 37-year-old described how wounded Stephen didn't seem to realise he'd been stabbed as they fled from the gang, and kept asking what was wrong.

Mr Brooks, who gave evidence despite the death of his father 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 case was then adjourned briefly to allow Mr Brooks time to compose himself.

Earlier, he told the court that he and Stephen had been returning from a friend's house and were waiting for the 122 bus in Well Hall Road, Eltham, on April 22, 1993.

On the day of his death Stephen had attended his sixth form classes and Mr Brooks, a student at Lewisham College, had spent his lunchtime with him.

The pair, who met at Blackheath Bluecoat secondary school when they were 11, went to the end of the road to see if the bus was arriving and as they returned they were targeted by the youths, he said.

Pausing to close his eyes and place his thumb and finger across the bridge of his nose, Mr Brooks broke down as he gave his evidence.

Mr Brooks went on: 'He kept saying to me what happened to him, why was he running like that. Look at him, like I must tell him what's happened. Then we were running.

'I was frightened that ... the other guys would come back round.'

The court heard that Mr Lawrence was stabbed and hit with a metal bar by his attackers.

Mr Brooks told the jury: 'When I looked back I saw, at that moment in time, 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.

Gary Dobson, 36, left, and David Norris, 35, right, both deny murder

The judge, Mr Justice Treacy, perhaps sensing jurors had been busy taking notes, asked him to repeat his demonstration.

Mr Brooks lifted his shirt-sleeved right hand over his head, clenched it and then dramatically made a stabbing motion downwards.

The weapon had been shiny, he said, and he held his hands apart to demonstrate when asked how long it was.

'Just under a foot long,' observed the judge.

He also said he was chased by one of the gang who had a metal bar.

'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 arriving at the Old Bailey this morning. He lost his father overnight but insisted on giving evidence today

Mr Brooks answered: 'It looked like he hit him in his head.' Mr Brooks said that when he saw Stephen get up, at first he was 'relieved'.

'I was being chased. The guy who was chasing me stopped and he ran back and hit Stephen. I was running back at the same time. The group ran off down Dickson Road, Stephen jumped up and then I was kind of relieved because I thought he'd just got a kicking. Then we ran across the road.'

The violence broke out after the attackers had hurled racist abuse at Mr Lawrence and Mr Brooks, the jury was told.

'These guys have come across the road and one of them said, 'what what n*****'.'

Mr Brooks added: 'At the time I looked and I've seen where they are and I felt threatened. I started running back towards Shooters Hill and I said to Steve to run.'

He said another man was chasing him and a tree blocked his view of the road and added 'At that time I was looking back and probably jogging back in fear.

'Stephen was in the road. The group converged on him. I was running back but the tree blocked my view of the road.'

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

Mr Brooks told a hushed courtroom: 'He said one more time "Duwayne" and his voice was funny and he fell at that tree.'

At this point there was loud sobs in the courtroom and public gallery and Mr Brooks cover his eyes with a hand.

Mr Ellison said: 'We know he collapsed further up the road. It's obviously distressing Mr Brooks...'

Mr Brooks interrupted 'I am OK' as he shook his head and wiped tears away before adding after a pause: 'So we were running and his blood's dripping out onto the floor...'

At this point tears welled up in his eyes and Mr Ellison QC said: 'I can deal with this quite quickly...'

But Mr Brooks defiantly said: 'I want to say what happened. He kept saying to me what's happened to me, why he was running like that?

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, regained his composure as he continued to give his version of events for most of the morning.

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, 37, admitted that he had told a magistrates' court hearing in 1995 that he had seen the gang in the street shortly after he got off the bus with Stephen.

His recollection now is that he did not see them until moments before they were attacked.

'What I was saying in 1995 I was saying when I was suffering post traumatic stress disorder,' Mr Brooks explained.

He told police at the scene Stephen had been hit with 'an iron bar or rounders bat, either wooden or steel.

'I don't remember exactly what I said at the scene,' he told the court.

Mr Brooks has now told the court the artist's impression he helped produce is a good likeness of the man who first attacked his friend.

But when questioned about the hair colour of two particular gang members, he admitted he now had 'no recollection' of their appearance.

The Eltham bus stop where Stephen was killed

Mr Roberts QC, for Dobson, went on to question him about the iron bar, which was not mentioned at all in Mr Brooks first statement, made on the night of the killing.

'That passage of activity is not described,' he said.

'Did that passage of activity actually happen, in your recollection?'

Mr Brooks replied: 'Yes. I believe I made a statement some months after when I was able to remember parts which for some reason I couldn't remember because it was very stressful. It was very upsetting.'

Mr Roberts also put it to him that in a conversation with PC Linda Bethel at the scene of Stephen's killing, Mr Brooks had admitted he had not witnessed his friend being struck.

Mr Roberts said: 'Apparently, you said to her that you had not seen Stephen being assaulted at all.

'You didn't witness the assault and could not say what the youths looked like. Do you have any recollection of saying that to PC Bethel at the scene?'

'No,' replied Mr Brooks.

Gary Dobson, 36, and David Norris, 35, are now on trial accused of being part of that group which forced Stephen to the ground at the bus stop and stabbed him twice. They deny murder.

Both men were charged after a forensic breakthrough in 2008 when scientists launched a cold case review of exhibits seized when they were arrested during the original investigation in 1993.

A speck of Stephen's blood was found on Dobson's grey jacket and scientists also found 16 fibres from the clothes Stephen was wearing on Dobson's clothing or in the evidence bag it was kept in, the prosecution claims.

It is also claimed that a bag used to store a pair of jeans from Norris contained two of Stephen's hairs, while fibres which could have come from the victim's trousers and polo shirt were found on a sweatshirt that was seized.

On Tuesday, Mr Ellison said the 'only discernible reason for the attack was the colour of their skin.'

Defence lawyers claim neither defendant was at the scene at the time of the killing and will argue that forensic evidence has been contaminated during the course of the investigation

The trial continues.

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