SEIZED clothing from four suspects in the Stephen Lawrence murder were kept in the same disused cell as those belonging to the victim, the old Bailey heard today.

Gary Dobson, aged 36, and David Norris, aged 35, both of south London, deny murdering the teenager in a racist 1993 attack at Well Hall Road, Eltham.

Detective Constable Robert Crane told the court that clothing taken from a search of David Norris's house came to him in sealed pacakges on May 7.

He placed them in the cell at Eltham police station, along with items from co-accused Gary Dobson.

Mr Crane had also been involved in searching the home of Neil and Jamie Acourt in Bournbrook Road, Eltham, that morning. Items of clothing taken from there were also stored in the cell.

He told the court that by the time these exhibits arrived, Mr Lawrence's clothing had been sent to the Met Police's forensic science laboratory.

Mr Crane also said it was his habit to keep items from each individual suspect in a larger bag or box, to keep them separate from one another.

Norris's defence barrister Stephen Batten, who claims the exhibits have been contaminated since the 1993 murder, asked whether any could have ended up on the same bed where Mr Lawrence's clothing was placed.

He asked: "Did anybody's exhibits end up on the bed?"

Mr Crane replied: "I can't answer that in all honesty."

Jurors also listened to several hours of evidence from Yvonne Turner, an assistant forensic scientist at the Met's lab, about how the exhibits were dealt with.

She told the court that victims' items and those of suspects were always examined in separate locations.

Ms Turner said: "It's intrinsic to our work that we separate the items from the same case and I have a record of where I put the items."

She described how the benches at the lab were regularly cleaned and she would make sure she wore a clean, fresh lab coat in each location where an examination took place.

The court heard exhbits, like Mr Lawrence’s blood-stained black LA Raiders jacket, would be tested for blood and have tape placed and then removed from them to take fibre samples.

Ms Turner had at one point mistakenly written a reference for a different robbery case on a file for Dobson's jacket, the court heard.

She said this was because she had not yet "got to grips" with the case.

The trial continues.