Jamie Acourt, a suspect in the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence, is earning £3,600 a month working as a self-employed courier after being released from prison, a court has heard. The 46-year-old appeared at City of London Magistrates' Court over his failure to repay £90,000 he made from a £3 million drugs plot.
Acourt was released from prison in November after serving half of a nine-year sentence for conspiracy to supply cannabis. He had spent more than two years on the run in Spain under the alias Simon Alfonzo. The court heard that he has made only three £500 payments towards the confiscation order, which has now risen to £102,329 with interest.
His lawyer, Joseph Barlow, said Acourt has monthly outgoings of about £2,700 and asked for more time to propose a higher payment. District Judge Robert Brown ordered payments to continue at £500 a month, with a review in three months, warning that otherwise the matter could drag on for years.
Acourt was one of five suspects in the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence, an 18-year-old black teenager stabbed to death in a racist attack in south-east London. Two of the suspects, Gary Dobson and David Norris, were convicted of murder in 2012 and given life sentences. Acourt's brother Neil Acourt was also jailed for the drugs plot, while the fifth suspect, Luke Knight, has never been convicted.
