More than 21 years after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, a new inquiry into the police investigation of his death has been launched.
Stephen Lawrence was 18 when he was set upon by a white gang in Eltham, South-East London in 1993. He was stabbed to death in the unprovoked, racist attack, and the perpetrators were always ‘in the frame’, according to the BBC. However, there were no convictions until 2012, when Gary Dobson and David Norris were sentenced to 15 years and two months and 14 years and two months respectively.
In the 18 years between Stephen’s death and these convictions, there were various police cover-ups and injustices, as an institutionally racist police force refused to properly investigate his death. In this time, campaigners surrounded the Lawrence family to support them and lobby the right people for change and investigations into police conduct.
However, this week, the Ellison Inquiry reported that one of the supporters wasn’t actually there to campaign, but a spy working on behalf of the Metropolitan police. Additionally, links between one of his killers’ fathers and Det Sgt John Davidson, a police officer who was meant to be working on the case, have been established by the Ellison inquiry, proving him to be corrupt.
Home Secretary Theresa May has called for a new enquiry into police corruption, saying, ‘Policing stands damaged today. Trust and confidence in the Metropolitan Police and policing more generally is vital.
‘Stephen Lawrence was murdered over 20 years ago and it is still deplorable that his family have had to wait so many years for the truth to emerge.’
Stephen's father Neville, and his mother Doreen, who has since become Baroness Lawrence as a Labour peer, have expressed their dismay. Neville said the reports findings were ‘21 years overdue’ and Baroness Lawrence said, ‘You can't trust them. Still, to this day. Trust and confidence in the Met is going to go right down.’ She then called for resignations over this latest blunder.
The report also did not rule out that corruption could have got in the way of the investigation, and May has said that some of the spying could have led to some wrongful convictions.
Over the past two decades, the Stephen Lawrence case has become a signifier of race relations in the UK, especially within the police force.
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Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.