Attorney General will review ‘unduly lenient’ sentences of Stephen Lawrence murderers

Britain’s top law officer is reviewing claims that jail terms for Stephen Lawrence’s killers are “unduly lenient”.

Several formal requests to Attorney General Dominic Grieve have been made since an Old Bailey trial judge suggested he would increase the minimum sentences of Gary Dobson and David Norris if the law allowed.

The development came as police assessed fresh information regarding other suspects in the 1993 racist murder. Scotland Yard has denied claims that investigations were being scaled down after Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe said other suspects would not be allowed to “rest easily in their beds”.

A spokesman for the Attorney General said he had been contacted by several individuals requesting a review after a member of the public made a formal application within hours of the killers being jailed. The Attorney General must review the sentence as part of his public interest function.

“Anybody can request that we look at the case,” the spokesman said. “We will consider it in the normal way.”

Dobson, 36, who is already serving a five-year sentence for drug-dealing, was sentenced to at least 15 years and two months at the Old Bailey on Thursday.

Norris, 35, was given a minimum of 14 years and three months for the murder, which the judge said was a “terrible and evil crime”.

Mr Justice Treacy urged police not to “close the file” after the court heard a gang of five or six youths set upon the A-level student in Eltham, south-east London.

Police are following up new information they have received since Tuesday’s guilty verdicts. A Scotland Yard spokesman said: “We have received a number of telephone calls in light of the verdicts. This information will be evaluated.”