It was the moment Stephen Lawrence's family had waited five years for. The five young men charged - but not convicted - with the murder of their son in April 1993 arrived at the judicial inquiry in south London to give evidence.
Hundreds of supporters, whipped into an angry mood even before the defendants arrived, lined the entrance to the inquiry chamber shouting "guilty, guilty" as the five men walked in. A defiant kiss to the crowd by one of the defendants, Mr Jamie Acourt (21), only angered them further as he marched defiantly past them.
Mr Jamie Acourt, his brother Mr Neil Acourt (22), Mr Luke Knight (20), Mr David Norris (21) and Mr Gary Dobson (22) have at various times been charged with the murder of Stephen Lawrence, who was stabbed to death outside a bus stop. Mr Neil Acourt, Mr Dobson and Mr Knight were acquitted of the murder in 1996 after a private prosecution by the Lawrence family collapsed, while the charges against Mr Jamie Acourt and Mr Norris were dropped before their case came to trial. All five have been promised immunity from prosecution during the inquiry, but could face perjury charges if they are found to have lied in the witness box.
Mr Jamie Acourt was the first of the five to sit in the witness box. In his smart navy suit and with a direct, defiant stare, he was ready for whatever came next. However, what came next were scenes of chaos as members of the civil rights group, the Nation of Islam, stormed the inquiry chamber shouting at the police: "You are stopping the public from coming into the inquiry. You are disrespecting black people."
As police officers rushed to the witness box to whisk Acourt to a side room, one man sprang towards him but was wrestled to the floor by other officers. Outside the doors of the chamber, members of the Nation of Islam, wearing their distinct uniform of black suits and red bow ties clashed with the police as they tried to gain entrance to the inquiry.
The Nation of Islam group, founded by Elijah Muhammed in the US in the 1930s, believes that black and white people should live apart. Its present leader, the Rev Louis Farrakhan, who is banned from preaching in Britain, once described Hitler as a "great man" during an anti-Jewish speech.
In the confusion which followed, police sprayed the protesters with CS gas and four members of the inquiry security personnel were taken to hospital. Two protesters were arrested and the hearing was suspended. A supermarket later provided a room for the supporters to watch the proceedings via a live television link.
When Mr Jamie Acourt finally returned to give evidence at 3 p.m., he repeatedly denied carrying dangerous weapons in public and denied any knowledge of the sword or the broken revolver and Gurkha knife found at his house. "I told you I don't know," he said to Mr Mike Mansfield QC, for the inquiry. "I couldn't tell you what I was thinking at the time, I was just a kid." When his brother, Mr Neil Acourt, sat in the witness box, he said he only began carrying knives in public after the death of Stephen Lawrence because he had received "loads and loads" of threatening telephone calls and letters. Asked where he carried the knife, he said: "If I was going to an area where there were more black people than white . . . my life was under threat." At times during his evidence, hisses and calls of "murderer" could be heard from members of the public. He was also asked about a scabbard found at the back of a sofa in the house he lived in with his brothers and mother. "What is that?" Mr Acourt replied. To laughs from the public, Mr Edmund Lawson QC, for the inquiry, said: "A scabbard is the thing a sword goes into, other than a body."
Mr Neil Acourt denied suggestions that he was racist but admitted he had used the word "nigger" to describe black people. "Black people call each other niggers," he claimed, "so why does it matter if white people say that?" He had been "persecuted" ever since being drawn into the case and, prompted by the stress of the allegations against him, had used racist and violent language towards black and Asian people, but he was only "joking". Explaining his actions during a secretly-recorded video filmed shortly after Stephen Lawrence's murder, Mr Acourt described playing with knives and threatening to chop off the arms of black people as "just boredom and anger. It is not as if I'm going to do it, is it?"
The inquiry continues today.