POLICE video showing the five men named yesterday by the Daily Mail as the killers of the black youth Stephen Lawrence handling knives will be shown on television tonight.
The covert surveillance video shows the men in their homes playing with knives and using racist language. The film is part of a Channel 4 documentary, The Stephen Lawrence Story, to be shown at 8 p.m.
The Daily Mail, in an unprecedented move, accused the five white men of murdering Mr Lawrence in an "unprovoked racist attack" and challenged them to sue if they are innocent.
The newspaper justified its decision to name them, publish their photographs and describe them as "murderers", by saying the case threatened to damage British justice and race relations.
The surveillance film, shot by Metropolitan Police officers after the men were named as suspects, has never been seen by a jury. It was filmed in a flat used by the five and shows one of them stabbing at his friend with a knife, the Mail reports.
The film had been due to be seen by the court during the Lawrence family's private prosecution but the case collapsed before it could be screened to the jury. When the case was before a magistrate for committal he had ruled it admissible. Stipendiary magistrate David Cooper said: "It shows a deeply held and sadistic loathing of all black people."
The Lawrence family is planning a civil action for compensation against the five, following an inquest jury's verdict on Thursday which stated Mr Lawrence was "unlawfully killed in a completely unprovoked racist attack by five white youths."
Mr Lawrence (18), was stabbed, by a gang of white men as he stood waiting for a bus in Eltham, south east London, in April 1993.
Last year, Mr Neil Acourt (21), Mr Luke Knight (19), and Mr Gary Dobson (21), were acquitted of murdering him when a private prosecution brought by his family collapsed after the trial judge ruled identification evidence inadmissible.
The case against Mr Jamie Acourt (19), and Mr David Norris (20), was dismissed at the magistrates court.