Murder of Stephen Lawrence
Stephen Lawrence (13 September 1974 – 22 April 1993) was a black British 18-year-old from Plumstead, southeast London, who was murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus in Well Hall Road, Eltham, on the evening of 22 April 1993.[2] The case became a cause célèbre: its fallout included changes of attitudes on racism and the police, and to the law and police practice. It also led to the partial revocation of the rule against double jeopardy. Two of the perpetrators were convicted of murder on 3 January 2012.[3]
"Stephen Lawrence" redirects here. For other people named Stephen Lawrence, see Stephen Lawrence (disambiguation).Date
After the initial investigation, six suspects were arrested but not charged;[4] a private prosecution subsequently initiated by Lawrence's family failed to secure convictions for any of the accused.[5] It was suggested during the investigation that Lawrence was killed because he was black, and that the handling of the case by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was affected by issues of race. A 1998 public inquiry,[6] headed by Sir William Macpherson, concluded that the original MPS investigation was incompetent and that the force was institutionally racist. It also recommended that the double jeopardy rule should be repealed in murder cases to allow a retrial upon new and compelling evidence: this was effected in 2005 upon enactment of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The publication in 1999 of the resulting Macpherson Report has been called "one of the most important moments in the modern history of criminal justice in Britain".[5] Jack Straw said that ordering the inquiry was the most important decision he made during his tenure as home secretary from 1997 to 2001.[7] In 2010, the Lawrence case was said to be "one of the highest-profile unsolved racially motivated murders".[8]
On 18 May 2011, after a further review,[9] 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 evidence.[10] At the same time it was disclosed that Dobson's original acquittal had been quashed by the Court of Appeal, allowing a retrial to take place.[11] Such an appeal had only become possible following the 2005 change in the law, although Dobson was not the first person to be retried for murder as a result.[12] On 3 January 2012, Dobson and Norris were found guilty of Lawrence's murder;[13] the pair were juveniles at the time of the crime and were sentenced to detention at Her Majesty's pleasure, equivalent to a life sentence for an adult,[14] with minimum terms of 15 years 2 months and 14 years 3 months respectively[15] for what the judge described as a "terrible and evil crime".[16]
In the years after Dobson and Norris were sentenced, the case regained prominence when concerns of corrupt police conduct during the original case handling surfaced in the media. Such claims had surfaced before, and been investigated in 2007, but were reignited in 2013 when a former undercover police officer stated in an interview that, at the time, he had been pressured to find ways to "smear" and discredit the victim's family, in order to mute and deter public campaigning for better police responses to the case. Although further inquiries in 2012 by both Scotland Yard and the Independent Police Complaints Commission had ruled that there was no basis for further investigation, Home Secretary Theresa May ordered an independent inquiry by a prominent QC into undercover policing and corruption, which was described as "devastating" when published in 2014.[6][17] An inquiry into whether members of the police force shielded the alleged killers was set up in October 2009.
Stephen Lawrence
13 September 1974
22 April 1993 (aged 18)
Exsanguination due to stab wounds
British
Student
Victim of racially-motivated murder[2]
Neville Lawrence
Doreen Lawrence
Attack[edit]
Lawrence had spent the day of 22 April 1993 at Blackheath Bluecoat School.[23] After school, he visited shops in Lewisham, then travelled by bus to an uncle's house in Grove Park. He was joined there by his friend Duwayne Brooks, and they played video games until leaving at around 10:00 pm.[23][24] After realising that the 286 bus on which they were travelling would get them home late, they decided to change for either bus route 161 or bus route 122 on Well Hall Road.[23]
Lawrence and Brooks arrived at the bus stop on Well Hall Road at 10:25 pm.[24] Lawrence walked along Well Hall Road to the junction of Dickson Road to see if he could see a bus coming.[1] Brooks was still on Well Hall Road, between Dickson Road and the roundabout with Rochester Way and Westhorne Avenue.[1]
Brooks saw a group of six white youths crossing Rochester Way on the opposite side of the street near the area of the zebra crossing and moving towards them.[1] At or just after 10:38 pm, he called out to ask whether Lawrence saw the bus coming. Brooks claimed that he heard one of Lawrence's assailants saying racial slurs as they all quickly crossed the road and "engulfed" Lawrence.[1]
The six aggressors forced Lawrence down to the ground, then stabbed him to a depth of about 5 inches (13 cm) on both sides of the front of his body, in the right collarbone and left shoulder. Both wounds severed axillary arteries before penetrating a lung. Lawrence lost all feeling in his right arm and his breathing was constricted, while he was losing blood from four major blood vessels. Brooks began running, and shouted for Lawrence to run to escape with him. While the attackers disappeared down Dickson Road, Brooks and Lawrence ran in the direction of Shooters Hill. Lawrence collapsed after running 130 yards (120 m); he bled to death soon afterwards.[1][25][26] The pathologist recorded that Lawrence managing to run this distance with a partially collapsed lung was "a testimony to his physical fitness".[1]
Brooks ran to call an ambulance while an off-duty police officer stopped his car and covered Lawrence with a blanket. Lawrence was taken to Brook General Hospital by 11:05 pm, but he was already dead.[1][27]
Trials[edit]
Witnesses[edit]
All three witnesses at the bus stop at the time of the attack said in their statements that the attack was sudden and short, although none were later able to identify the suspects.[23] In the days following Lawrence's murder, several residents came forward to provide names of suspects and an anonymous note was left on a police car windscreen and in a telephone box naming a local gang[28] as the five main suspects.[29] The suspects were Gary Dobson, brothers Neil and Jamie Acourt, Luke Knight, and David Norris.[29] In February 1999, officers investigating the handling of the initial inquiry revealed that a woman who might have been a vital witness had telephoned detectives three times within the first few days after the killing, and appealed for her to contact them again.[30]
The five suspects were previously involved in racist knife attacks around the Eltham area.[31] Four weeks before Lawrence's death, Dobson and Neil Acourt were involved in a racist attack on a black teenager, Kevin London, whom they verbally abused and attempted to stab.[32] Neil's brother Jamie was accused of stabbing teenagers Darren Witham in May 1992 and Darren Giles in 1994, causing Giles to suffer a cardiac arrest.[33] The stabbings of victims Gurdeep Bhangal and Stacey Benefield, which both occurred in March 1993, in Eltham, were also linked to Neil and Jamie Acourt, David Norris and Gary Dobson.[34][35]
Initial investigations, arrests and prosecutions[edit]
Within three days of the crime, prime suspects had been identified. No arrests were made, however, until over two weeks after the murder. The police also did not investigate the suspects' houses for 4 days. Detective Superintendent Brian Weeden, the officer who had been leading the murder investigation from its third day, and who would ultimately lead the murder squad for 14 months, explained to an incredulous public inquiry in 1998 that part of the reason no arrests had taken place by the fourth day after the killing (Monday 26 April) was that he had not known the law allowed arrest upon reasonable suspicion – a basic point of criminal law.[36][37]
On 7 May 1993, the Acourt brothers and Dobson were arrested. Norris turned himself in to police and was likewise arrested three days later. Knight was arrested on 3 June. Neil Acourt, picked out at an identity parade, and Luke Knight were charged with murder on 13 May and 23 June 1993 respectively, but the charges were dropped on 29 July 1993, the Crown Prosecution Service citing insufficient evidence.[38]
An internal review was opened in August 1993 by the Metropolitan Police. On 16 April 1994, the Crown Prosecution Service stated they did not have sufficient evidence for murder charges against anyone else, despite a belief by the Lawrence family that new evidence had been found.[36]
Private prosecution[edit]
In September 1994,[3] 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 all worked pro bono.[39] The charges against Jamie Acourt and David Norris were dropped before the trial for lack of evidence. On 23 April 1996, the three remaining suspects were acquitted of murder by a jury at the Central Criminal Court, after the trial judge, the Honourable Mr Justice Curtis, ruled that the identification evidence given by Duwayne Brooks was unreliable.[5] The Macpherson report endorsed the judgement, stating that "Mr Justice Curtis could [have] properly reach[ed] only one conclusion" and that "[t]here simply was no satisfactory evidence available".[6]
Other inquiries and investigations[edit]
The Macpherson Inquiry[edit]
On 31 July 1997, the home secretary, Jack Straw, ordered a public inquiry, to be conducted by Sir William Macpherson and officially titled "The Inquiry Into The Matters Arising From The Death of Stephen Lawrence", and published as The Macpherson report.[73] Its report, produced in February 1999, estimated that it had taken "more than 100,000 pages of reports, statements, and other written or printed documents"[73] and 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.[6]
Detective Superintendent Brian Weeden said during the inquiry that mistakes had been made in the murder investigation, including his own ignorance that he could have arrested the suspects four days after the killing simply on reasonable suspicion, a basic point of criminal law.[36][37]
The report also found that the Metropolitan Police was institutionally racist. A total of 70 recommendations for reform, covering both policing and criminal law, 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.[74]
The report was criticised in an October 2000 article in The Times by Michael Gove (later an MP and cabinet minister), who wrote, "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."[75] The pamphlet referred to by Gove is a publication by the think tank Civitas, which criticised the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, its procedures, its findings and its reception, as well as broadly exploring what it called "The fanatical mindset... of the militant anti-racist" with references to Malcolm X among others.
Public complaints about mishandling of case[edit]
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.[76]
On 10 March 2006, the Metropolitan Police Service announced that it would pay Duwayne Brooks £100,000 as compensation for how police handled his complaints about their actions toward him after the murder, characterized as "racist stereotyping" of him as a hostile young black man, according to a statement from Brooks' solicitors firm.[77][78]
In the media[edit]
The case and its immediate aftermath were dramatised in the 1999 ITV film The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Hugh Quarshie as Doreen and Neville Lawrence. A three-part sequel series, entitled Stephen, was broadcast in 2021. Quarshie reprised his role as Neville, alongside Sharlene Whyte as Doreen, and Steve Coogan as DCI Clive Driscoll.[111]
Daily Mail journalist Stephen Wright has written about the Lawrence case, both before and subsequent to the prosecution. He received a Special Campaign Award as part of the 2012 Paul Foot Award for his work in the Lawrence case.[112]
Novelist Deborah Crombie uses the turmoil following the Stephen Lawrence murder as a flashback setting in her 2017 book, The Garden of Lamentations. The story includes police officers who were undercover on both sides of the protests, as well as widespread corruption for years afterward. Crombie includes an explanation of the murder in her author's note at the end of the book, but specifies that the rest of the characters are not meant to represent actual people.
Lawrence's murder was the subject of the three-part documentary miniseries Stephen: The Murder That Changed a Nation that was first broadcast on BBC One in April 2018.[113] Following the BBC investigations, the Met police publicly named Matthew White as the sixth suspect on 26 June 2023. White died in 2021 at the age of 50.[114]