Philip Lawrence

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Philip Ambrose Lawrence QGM (21 August 1947–8 December 1995) was a London-based headmaster who was stabbed to death outside the gates of his school in December 1995, when he went to the aid of a pupil who was being attacked by a gang.

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[edit] Biography

Lawrence was born in Dublin, the son of a retired Indian Army colonel, and was brought up in County Wicklow. He attended Ampleforth College and won an exhibition to read English at Queens' College, Cambridge, being awarded his BA in 1969 and his MA in 1970.

In the 1970s, he taught English at St. Benedict's School at Ealing Abbey, a Roman Catholic independent school. On 10 February 1973, he married Frances Huntley, a fellow teacher at the school; they had three daughters and a son.

Lawrence later became the Head of English at Gunnersbury Boys' School in Brentford, Deputy Headmaster at St.Mark's RC School in Hounslow and then headmaster of Dick Sheppard School, a Lambeth comprehensive. In 1993, he was appointed headmaster of St. George's Roman Catholic School, Maida Vale in North London, regarded as a rough school with poor exam results. He improved the academic reputation of the school, but problems with violence continued.

[edit] Murder

The Wo-Sing-Wo gang, which was mainly Filipino, aspired to be a junior version of the Triads. Twelve of the gang's members, led by 15-year old Learco Chindamo, a pupil at another school who claimed to be a Triad member, went to St. George's school on 8 December 1995, to "punish" a 13-year old boy named William Njoh, who had quarrelled with a Filipino pupil. Lawrence saw them attack the boy with an iron bar and went outside to remonstrate with the gang. Chindamo punched him and then stabbed him in the chest, and he died in hospital that evening.

Chindamo was convicted of murder at the Old Bailey in October 1996, after a unanimous decision by the jury, and jailed indefinitely (as he was a juvenile at the time). He has always claimed that he was the victim of mistaken identity, and that the real killer was another boy who had borrowed his jacket, although he does not deny that he was present. During the trial it was shown that Chindamo's claim of links to Chinese Triad society was pure fantasy.

On 10 October 1997, however, he lost his appeal. He was also a suspect in the non-fatal stabbing of a man named John Mills (not the actor) during a mugging in Camden several months before Lawrence's death. Chindamo was born in Italy to an Italian father and Filipino mother.

Njoh himself was sentenced to four and a half years in 2003 for carrying a gun to London's Notting Hill Carnival.

[edit] Aftermath

The case increased the level of concern expressed about levels of violence involving school-age youths, and the safety of pupils and staff while in school, which were beginning to become a public issue in the United Kingdom in the early 1990s.

Lawrence was posthumously awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal (QGM) on 14 June 1997.[1]

The Philip Lawrence Awards were instituted by the then Home Secretary Michael Howard in Lawrence's honour, and were first presented on 15 March 1997. They honour outstanding achievement by young people aged between 11 and 20.

The Phillip Lawrence murder, combined with the Dunblane massacre and Wolverhampton nursery machete attack (both of which happened within seven months of Mr Lawrence's death), resulted in improvements to security in primary and secondary schools across Britain, particularly in areas with high crime rates.

[edit] The school

After the tragedy, standards decreased at the school and it was placed on 'Special Measures' by Ofsted. In March 2000 it was facing permanent closure when Marie Stubbs was persuaded out of retirement to lead the task force given four terms to turn the school around. In little over a year, the combined effort of staff, students and parents transformed it, from a failing institution, into a well-run, effective school that Ofsted praised as a national example of good practice.

Today the school is still improving, with the latest Ofsted report in 2003 being very positive.

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ London Gazette, 13 June 1997

[edit] External links