Lovemore overcame racism and police violence to become a champion boxer, now the courtroom is his ring

Lovemore Ndou was 16 when a cashier flirted with him at the supermarket.

It might seem innocuous, but a white woman flirting with a black man in South Africa during apartheid was anything but.

When authorities weren’t able to pin a sexual assault on him, they instead accused him of theft before taking him to a cell where they broke his arm and let a dog — trained to “kill black people on sight” — almost tear out his eye.

It’s left a scar he still bares next to his eye socket — a reminder of the three-time world welterweight champion’s childhood in a country where race defined lives.

“It made me realise a black man’s life in South Africa was worthless at the time,” Mr Ndou said.

“My own life was nothing in my country. I decided in the…