AN audit of crucial evidence in the Stephen Lawrence murder found minimal chance of contamination before 2001, the Old Bailey heard today.

Gary Dobson, aged 36, and David Norris, aged 35, deny killing the teenager in 1993, claiming new evidence against them is the result of contamination.

In March 2001, Detective Constables Raymond Wood and Paul Sloper carried out an audit of the seized clothing in the case at Deptford police station.

It included checking whether the tape on each evidence bag was intact before they placed every packaged item in a new plastic bag.

During the audit, they noticed the tape sealing a number of the packets, including those containing Mr Lawrence's black LA Raiders jacket and Dobson's cardigan, had started to come away in places.

In his report, Mr Sloper, wrote: "With the passage of time, there's been an obvious deterioration in the adhesive properties of the Sellotape."

He noted that record keeping on the integrity of each exhibit had been "to say the least, lacking" prior to 1999.

But he wrote: "It appears that on the whole there was very little co-mingling of exhibits from the various scenes, therefore there could be minimum opportunity for contamination."

The court heard how exhibits had been returned to the Met's police station in Shooter's Hill on February 25 1998, following a Kent Police operation looking at complaints against Met officers.

On March 9 1999 they were moved again, this time to Deptford police station, where the ongoing investigation had transferred to.

The following week, on March 16, some of the items were moved yet again, to Sydenham police station where they were photographed. This included Dobson's yellow and gray jacket.

Once the photo was taken, the jacket was put in a fresh evidence bag along with its original packaging.

DC Wood was quizzed on why he had done that by Dobson's barrister Tim Roberts, who claimed the outside of the original packaging could have picked up contaminants.

Mr Roberts said: “This was the paper package that had been in with a bag that also contained Stephen Lawrence’s black jacket in November of 1995.”

He said: “These packages had been cheek by jowl and one on top of the other in 1995.”

Mr Wood replied: “But they were secure.”

The trial continues.