Stephen Lawrence killer David Norris to get damages

David Norris is serving a life sentence for Stephen Lawrence's murder

One of Stephen Lawrence's killers has settled a claim with the Ministry of Justice after he was attacked in prison.

David Norris suffered a broken nose and ribs at HMP Belmarsh in 2011 where he was being held on remand ahead of his trial for murder.

He sued for damages - reported to be £8,000 - after the assault.

Norris and another man, Gary Dobson, were found guilty of murdering the teenager in a racist attack in 1993.

The pair were given life sentences in 2012.

Analysis: Danny Shaw, BBC Home Affairs correspondent

It's understood that David Norris was awarded around £8,000 compensation.

He was also entitled to legal aid.

But the amount he received in compensation will have counted as his income, therefore it's thought he would have had to pay some of his legal fees himself.

In 2017-18, a total of 4,957 offenders received "special payments" from HM Prison and Probation Service amounting to more than £10m.

The previous year, £8.7m was paid out to 4,936 offenders.

The figures - contained in the HMPPS annual report published last week - do not contain any further detail, but officials say the vast majority of the payments were compensation to prisoners and other offenders.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice said: "We robustly defend all claims and are successful in two-thirds of cases brought against us by prisoners."

During Norris's murder trial, defence lawyer Stephen Batten QC said the prisoner had been attacked several times while on remand in jail.

Stephen Lawrence was murdered in 1993

He told jurors at the Old Bailey that on one occasion his client's nose was broken, teeth were knocked out, and four ribs were broken.

Stephen, a black British 18-year-old from Plumstead, south-east London, was waiting for a bus on the evening of 22 April 1993 when he was stabbed to death.

His death sparked a national outrage and probes into police conduct after a number of failures were identified in the handling of the case.

Stephen's parents recently called for further investigations into their son's death as they believe he was stabbed by a group of up to six people.

But The Met said probes into Stephen's murder were "unlikely to progress" without new information.