Tuesday 27 September 2022 09:08 PM Armani-clad killer David Norris living a life of luxury and making mockery of ... trends now

The cost of living crisis has forced many of us to change our spending habits, with people understandably cutting back on non-essential purchases.

But not, it would seem, on E Wing at His Majesty’s Prison Dartmoor, where one of the country’s most reviled killers has recently taken delivery of two prized additions to his wardrobe.

David Norris, 46, who murdered the black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993, is seemingly unaffected by the widespread need to tighten purse strings after acquiring a £150 pair of Emporio Armani EA7 trainers and, from the same brand, a £145 EA7 sweatshirt.

From the outside, the need to wear expensive designer clothes to socialise with inmates in the Category C jail in Princetown, high on Dartmoor in Devon, is perplexing.

But a whistle-blower, who spoke on condition of anonymity as part of a major Daily Mail investigation into the Norris ‘selfie scandal’ and his alleged ‘luxury’ life behind bars, said it all comes down to his ‘status’.

‘Norris has got an air of “I don’t give a f***” about life and spending this amount of money is proof of that,’ said the source, who has seen Norris’s new purchases. ‘In his mind, it is good for his status to wear this gear.’

‘Nozza’, as he is known to fellow inmates, is said to quietly revel in his reputation as one of Britain’s most notorious murderers. He and his racist gang stabbed 18-year-old Stephen to death simply because of the colour of his skin. According to an uncorroborated account relayed to us during our inquiries, Norris has told inmates at Dartmoor that he was the gang member who stabbed Stephen to death. If true, this is a significant revelation, as police remain uncertain who in the killer gang wielded the knife.

A source who witnessed Norris’s alleged confession said: ‘I am not sure whether it was bravado or not, but I was quite shocked by his comments. One day Norris admitted in his cell that he stabbed Stephen. I remember it clearly. He added that he had “never lost a wink of sleep over it”. I have a number of black friends and was really shocked by that comment. I don’t know how someone could take someone’s life and not be phased by it.’

Bravado or not, being able to wear flashy attire ensures Norris remains as the very top of the hierarchy in the inmate population at Dartmoor, which includes dozens of rapists, paedophiles and other sex offenders. In criminal circles, HMP Dartmoor – owned by the Duchy of Cornwall - is nicknamed ‘Monster Mansion’ because of the high percentage of sex offenders (‘nonces’ in prison parlance) there.

Just how the ardent Millwall supporter is able to acquire such costly items will be a question being asked by law enforcement and prison officials today as the Mail exposes his extraordinary lifestyle behind bars.

In 2013, I revealed that ‘hard up’ Norris had received £222,346 in legal aid to defend the murder charge against him the previous year, when he was convicted of killing Stephen and jailed for life with the recommendation that he serve a minimum of 14 years and three months before he could apply to be released on licence.

Today, we have been told, he earns about £18 a week working in the garden at HMP Dartmoor, where he maintains a polythene ‘polytunnel’ greenhouse, with lettuce, courgettes and chillies among the produce grown.

It is one of the best paid and cushiest jobs in the prison – second only to being a gymnasium orderly, which pays about £20 a week - but still a paltry sum when you consider the amount his newly purchased Emporio Armani clothes and accessories cost.

But a more pressing concern for investigators will be how Norris obtained a smartphone to communicate with the outside world and, according to an informed source, go on Facebook, YouTube and possibly dating apps while confined to his carpeted cell each night. Across the country, scores of inmates are said to use dating apps to strike up relationships from their prison cells – or even continue to mastermind their criminal activities.

The ease with which Norris has been able to bypass strict prison rules, which bar inmates from having and using mobile phones, is an indictment of the regime at Dartmoor Prison. Who supplied him with the device? Was it delivered by a visitor, by a drone or thrown over the prison wall? Or, perhaps more likely, given to him by a corrupt member of staff who has been handsomely rewarded?

So cocky has Norris been about his recently acquired device that he has posted pictures of himself in his cell on E Wing, reserved for well-behaved and trusted prisoners, on WhatsApp for his friends and contacts in the outside world to see.

On September 4, he put a picture of himself on his WhatsApp ‘status’ with the caption: ‘I’m coming home in 2 to liven you all up’.

The next day, September 5, he unleashed an extraordinary foul-mouthed rant against the then Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, who earlier this year blocked his bid to be moved to a Category D open prison.

Under a Facebook screenshot of an attractive woman, he wrote on WhatsApp that day: ‘High Court decision in morning about high risk offenders an (sic) parole. Dom Raab your f****d c*** cos the Nozza is defo home in 2 [years] and High Court now agrees. Get that party sorted girls cos I be there soon. Eye Eye the man’s bk in town. F*****g buzzing you c***s !!!!!’

They are not comments which suggest serial thug Norris, whose racist language and hatred of black people was caught on a police surveillance video after Stephen’s murder and appalled his trial in 2011-2012, is a reformed character.

On September 10, just after the

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