| Stephen Lawrence | |
|---|---|
Stephen Lawrence |
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| Born | 13 September 1974 Greenwich District Hospital, London,[1] England |
| Died | 22 April 1993 (aged 18) Well Hall Road, Eltham, South East London, England |
| Cause of death | Blood loss due to stabbing |
| Resting place | Clarendon, Jamaica[1] |
| Ethnicity | Black British |
| Education | Blackheath Bluecoat School |
| Occupation | Student |
| Known for | Victim of racial murder[2] |
| Parents | Neville Lawrence Doreen Lawrence |
Stephen Lawrence (13 September 1974 – 22 April 1993) was a Black British teenager from Eltham, south east London, who was murdered in a racial attack while waiting for a bus on the evening of 22 April 1993.[2] Witnesses said he was attacked by a gang of white youths chanting racist slogans.[3]
After the initial investigation, five suspects were arrested but not convicted.[4] It was suggested during the course of investigation that the murder had a racist motive and that Lawrence was killed because he was black, and that the handling of the case by the police and Crown Prosecution Service was affected by issues of race. A public inquiry was held in 1999,[5] headed by Sir William Macpherson that examined the original Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) investigation and concluded that the force was "institutionally racist". The inquiry has been called 'one of the most important moments in the modern history of criminal justice in Britain'.[6] The then–Home Secretary Jack Straw commented in 2012 that ordering the inquiry was "the single most important decision I made as Home Secretary".[7] The results of the inquiry were published in 1999 as the Macpherson Report.
On 18 May 2011, following a cold case review,[8] it was announced that two of the original suspects, Gary Dobson and David Norris, were to stand trial for the murder in the light of "new and substantial evidence" becoming available.[9] A jury was selected on Monday 14 November 2011, and the trial started on the following day. On 3 January 2012, Dobson and Norris were found guilty of Lawrence's murder,[10] and were sentenced on 4 January 2012 to detention at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, equivalent to a life sentence for an adult,[11] with minimum terms of 15 years 2 months and 14 years 3 months respectively[12] for what the judge described as a "terrible and evil crime".[13] The sentences would have been far longer but the crime had been committed many years previously and before adulthood, requiring sentencing as juveniles according to the law as it stood at the time of the murder.[13][14]
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Stephen Lawrence was born on 13 September 1974 to Neville Lawrence, a carpenter, and his wife Doreen, a special needs teacher.[1] He was one of three children.[15] He was brought up in Plumstead, South-East London.[16] At the time of his death he was studying English, design and technology, craft and physics at the Blackheath Bluecoat School and was hoping to become an architect.
Lawrence had spent the day of 22 April 1993 at Blackheath Bluecoat School.[17] After school, he went to Lewisham to look around shops. After this, he travelled by bus to an uncle's house in Plumstead. Joined there by Duwayne Brooks, they played video games until leaving in the late evening.[17] After realising that the bus on which they were travelling would get them home late, they decided to change buses on Well Hall Road.[17] Lawrence walked along Well Hall Road to Dickson Road to see if he could see a bus coming.[18] Brooks was still on Well Hall Road, part way between Dickson Road and the roundabout with Rochester Way and Westhorne Avenue.[18] At this point, Brooks saw a group of five or six white youths on the opposite side of the street.[18] At 10:35 pm, he called out to ask whether Lawrence saw the bus coming. Brooks claimed that he heard one of Lawrence's assailants saying: "What, what, nigger?"[18] as they all quickly crossed the road and 'engulfed' Lawrence, who then received two stab wounds to a depth of about five inches on both sides of the front of his body, in the chest and arm. Both of the stab wounds severed axillary arteries. Brooks began running, and shouted for Lawrence to run to escape with him. They both ran in the direction of Shooters Hill, though Lawrence collapsed and bled to death after running 130 yards (120 m).[18]
| “ | It is surprising that he managed to get 130 yards with all the injuries he had, but also the fact that the deep penetrating wound of the right side caused the upper lobe to partially collapse his lung. It is therefore a testimony to Stephen's physical fitness that he was able to run the distance he did before collapsing.[18] | ” |
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—Richard Shepherd (Pathologist), Macpherson Report |
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All three witnesses at the bus stop at the time of the attack said in statements that the attack was sudden and short; none were later able to identify any of the suspects.[17]
In February 1999, officers who were investigating the handling of the initial inquiry revealed that a woman had telephoned detectives three times within the first few days after the killing.[19]
In 2004, the police stated: "The witness who appeared on the right of the scene and walked into Rochester Way with Stephen and Duwayne behind is very important to us. We know who this witness is, she knows who she is, we know what she knows. She has never made a statement. This witness may have been the catalyst for the attack."
In the days following Lawrence's murder, several residents came forward to provide names of suspects and anonymous notes were also left on police car windscreens and in telephone boxes naming five main suspects. [20]
A case was brought against two of the suspects, Neil Acourt, then 17, and Luke Knight, 16, who were initially charged with murder. The Crown Prosecution Service later dropped the charge on 29 July 1993, citing insufficient evidence.[21]
In April 1994,[22] Stephen Lawrence's family initiated a private prosecution against the initial two suspects and three others: Jamie Acourt, Gary Dobson and David Norris. The family were not entitled to legal aid and a fighting fund was established to pay for the analysis of forensic evidence and the cost of tracing and re-interviewing witnesses. The family were represented by counsel Michael Mansfield QC, Martin Soorjoo and Margo Boye who acted on an unpaid basis.[23] The charges against Jamie Acourt and David Norris were dropped before the trial due to lack of evidence, and the three remaining suspects were acquitted at trial when the judge ruled that the identification evidence given by Duwayne Brooks was unreliable.[6]
In November 2007, police stated that they were investigating new scientific evidence.[29] Gary Dobson and David Norris were arrested and charged in September 2010, and in May 2011 it was announced they would face trial for Lawrence's murder.[22] A jury was picked on Monday 14 November 2011,[30] and the trial, presided over by Mr Justice Treacy, began the next day.[31][32] On 3 January 2012, Dobson and Norris were found guilty of Lawrence's murder.[10] The two were sentenced on 4 January 2012 to detention at Her Majesty’s Pleasure, equivalent to a life sentence for an adult,[11] with minimum terms of 15 years and 2 months for Dobson and 14 years and 3 months for Norris.[13][33] The minimum term for Dobson was increased to ensure his existing sentence for drug-related offences was served and not unjustly reduced.[11] The judge's sentencing remarks were later published in full online.[11]
The judge stated that the sentences reflected the fact that Dobson and Norris were juveniles at the time of the fatal stabbing, which took place before the Criminal Justice Act 2003, giving a minimum term of 12 years, and acknowledged this was "lower than some might expect".[11][14] A similar crime committed in 2011 would have received a minimum term of 25 years.[34] Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights, incorporated into English law by the Human Rights Act 1998, forbids retrospective increases in sentences. Thus a person may not be given a sentence more severe than that which could have been imposed at the time of the crime.[13]
Following the 2012 convictions, Paul Dacre, Daily Mail editor since 1992, issued a comment on his 1997 headline decision.[35] [36]
An annual architectural award, the Stephen Lawrence Prize, was established by the Royal Institute of British Architects in Lawrence's memory.
His mother, Doreen Lawrence, said, "I would like Stephen to be remembered as a young man who had a future. He was well loved, and had he been given the chance to survive maybe he would have been the one to bridge the gap between black and white because he didn't distinguish between black or white. He saw people as people."[33]
In 1999, Nicolas Kent designed a documentary play based on the trial, called The Colour of Justice. It was staged at the Tricycle Theatre and was later filmed by the BBC.[37]
On 7 February 2008, the Stephen Lawrence Centre, designed by architect David Adjaye, opened in Deptford, south-east London.[38] A week later, it was vandalised in an attack that was initially believed to be racially motivated. However, doubt was cast on that assumption when CCTV evidence appeared to show one of the suspects to be mixed-race.[39]
The Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust is a national educational charity committed to the advancement of social justice. The Trust provides educational and employability workshops and mentoring schemes. It also awards architectural and landscape bursaries.[40] In 2008 the Trust, with architects RMJM, created the initiative Architecture for Everyone to help promote architecture and the creative industries to young people from ethnic minorities.[41]
In 1997, Lawrence's family registered a formal complaint with the Police Complaints Authority (PCA), which in 1999 exonerated the officers who had worked on the case of allegations of racism. Only one officer, Detective Inspector Ben Bullock, was ordered to face disciplinary charges for neglect of duty. Bullock, who was second in command of the investigation, was later found guilty of failure to properly brief officers and failure to fully investigate an anonymous letter sent to police, but he was acquitted of 11 other charges. Four other officers who would have been charged as a result of the inquiry retired before it concluded.
Bullock retired the day after his punishment was announced, so that it amounted to a mere caution. Neville Lawrence, Stephen's father, criticised the punishment, saying that Bullock was "guilty on all counts." However, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Police Federation stated that Bullock had been "largely vindicated" in the proceedings.[42]
That same year, while the PCA inquiry was ongoing, Home Secretary Jack Straw ordered a public inquiry. During the inquiry, Detective Superintendent Brian Weeden said that mistakes had been made during the murder investigation. Weeden, who was head of the murder squad for 14 months, admitted that until recently he had not understood the legal grounds on which police could make arrests.[22] Results of the inquiry became known as the Macpherson Report, or the Stephen Lawrence Report.
Conducted by Sir William Macpherson, the inquiry concluded that the original Metropolitan Police Service investigation had been incompetent and that officers had committed fundamental errors, including: failing to give first aid when they reached the scene; failing to follow obvious leads during their investigation; and failing to arrest suspects. The report found that there had been a failure of leadership by senior MPS officers and that recommendations of the 1981 Scarman Report, compiled following race-related riots in Brixton and Toxteth, had been ignored.
The Report also found that the Metropolitan Police was institutionally racist. A total of 70 recommendations for reform were made. These proposals included abolishing the double jeopardy rule and criminalising racist statements made in private. Macpherson also called for reform in the British Civil Service, local governments, the National Health Service, schools, and the judicial system, to address issues of institutional racism.[43]
The report was criticised at the time by Michael Gove (now Secretary of State for Education) in The Times, who said that "The tendentious reasoning and illiberal recommendations of that document have been brilliantly anatomised by the ethical socialists Norman Dennis and George Erdos and the Kurdish academic Ahmed al-Shahi in the Civitas pamphlet Racist Murder and Pressure Group Politics." [44]
On 10 March 2006, the Metropolitan Police Service announced that it would pay Duwayne Brooks £100,000 as compensation for the manner in which police had handled his complaints about their actions toward him after the murder.[45][46]
On 25 July 2006, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) announced that it had asked the Metropolitan Police to look into alleged claims of police corruption that may have helped hide the killers of Lawrence.
A BBC investigation alleged that the murder inquiry's Det. Sgt. John Davidson had taken money from known drug smuggler Clifford Norris, the father of David Norris, a chief suspect in the investigation.[47] Neil Putnam, a former corrupt police detective turned whistleblower, told a BBC investigation that Clifford Norris was paying Mr Davidson to obstruct the case and to protect the suspects. "Davidson told me that he was looking after Norris and that to me meant that he was protecting him, protecting his family against arrest and any conviction," Putnam said.[47] Davidson denied any such corruption.
The Metropolitan Police Service announced that it was to open up a special incident room to field calls from the public, following the BBC documentary The Boys Who Killed Stephen Lawrence. The Independent Police Complaints Commission later stated that the claims made in the programme were unfounded.[48]
On 27 July 2006, the Daily Mail repeated its famous "Murderers" front page.
| “ | The need to re-establish trust between minority ethnic communities and the police is paramount... seeking to achieve trust and confidence through a demonstration of fairness will not in itself be sufficient. It must be accompanied by a vigorous pursuit of openness and accountability.[49][50] | ” |
On 17 December 2009, Independent Police Complaints Commission investigators and officers from the Metropolitan Police's directorate of professional standards arrested a former police constable and a serving member of Metropolitan Police staff on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice by allegedly withholding evidence from the original murder inquiry, the Kent investigation and the Macpherson inquiry. Dr Richard Stone, who sat on the Macpherson inquiry, commented that the panel had felt that there was "a large amount of information that the police were either not processing or were suppressing" and "a strong smell of corruption". Baroness Ros Howells, patron of the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust, agreed: "Lots of people said they gave the police evidence which was never produced."[51] On 1 March 2010 the IPCC announced that "No further action will be taken against the two men arrested following concerns identified by the internal Metropolitan police service (MPS) review of the murder of Stephen Lawrence" and the two were released from bail. [52]