`If Stephen Lawrence had been white no-one would have heard of him' WHAT DAVID NORRIS'S KILLER UNCLE TOLD THE SUNDAY MIRROR.

THE killer uncle of Stephen Lawrence suspect David Norris spoke for the first time last night about the race-hate murder - and claimed it would be forgotten had the victim been white.

Jo-Jo Smith, who is on parole 20 years after murdering an Indian student by slashing his throat with a broken cider bottle, said: "If it had been a white man killed, you wouldn't have heard anything more about it.

"Because the victim was black, the media and politicians have jumped on it. It sells papers and makes headlines.

"It has all got political. It's not just a murder any more, it's much bigger than that."

He added: "I don't know if David did it, but he says he's innocent."

Smith, 38, the brother of Norris's mother Teresa, said of Thursday night's TV questioning of the suspects: "Yeah, I saw it, and it's got nothing to do with me. I stay out of it. I have talked about it with my sister, but I don't want to get involved.

"To be honest, I stay away from Teresa and her family at the moment. In my current situation, it is not a good idea to see them. It might cause problems with my parole.

"When I go back to London I only see my parents. I don't see the rest of the family. I haven't got any advice for David at all.It has got nothing to do with me."

Then Smith - called Jo-Jo because his first names are Joseph John - talked about March 10, 1978, the night he slashed the throat of student teacher Nyrup Reddi.

He admitted there were uncanny similarities between Reddi's death and Stephen Lawrence's murder. "In both, gangs were involved," he said. "Things got out of hand."

But he added that just because Norris was in a gang did not make him a killer. "You can compare my gang to his. There were five or six of us and everybody knew we were a gang. If one person got pulled by the cops when I was young, then we all did.

"Everybody knew David was in a gang, so when something like the Lawrence murder happens he was always going to be nicked.

"That's the way it goes. It also happened to me. I did wrong by hitting that bloke with the bottle, and I have paid my dues.

"It was not a racist thing. He could have been any colour. It was just a fight that had a terrible end.

"I've got lots of black mates now. I don't have anything against them or Asians. I have served my debt to society and now I just want to get on with my life. I am very sorry for the bloke I killed. I will always be a convicted murderer.

"But I must put that behind me now. I have a new life and want to get on with it."

Smith lives in a probation hostel called The Cottage at Ipswich, Suffolk. He plans to move to Lowestoft to live with wife Lisa and daughter Toni, nine, in a one-bedroom flat.

He is suing the Home Office after a red-tape blunder led to him serving an extra seven months behind bars.

He and eight others attacked rock music fan Reddi and guests at a party he had been holding at his flat in Deptford, South-East London.

Trouble flared when a friend of Smith's threw a brick through Reddi's window and a girl guest who had been sitting on the sill fell to the floor.

He recalled: "I was 17 at the time and part of our weekend routine was to go to the Deptford Arms. From there I went to a private drinking club (called The Spiel).

"Two of my mates left and about an hour later one came back covered in blood. He told us he'd been beaten up at a party.

"He said one of our mates was still being attacked, so we ran to help him. I grabbed the bottle as I got there and smashed it on the wall. I did it to scare them.

"I thought they would run away when they saw me, but they just came at me. I caught the bloke in the face. I hit him in the jugular. He just bled to death. I shouldn't have done it, but it was just a fight. I didn't mean it."

Smith, who already had 20 previous convictions, was ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's Pleasure at the Old Bailey.

The judge told him: "It was a brutal murder and you tried to lie your way out of it - you manifestly failed."

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Author:	Luckett, Tim; Gardner, Andy
Publication:	Sunday Mirror (London, England)
Date:	Apr 11, 1999
Words:	774
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