Stephen Lawrence (13 September 1974 – 22 April 1993) was a
black British teenager from
Plumstead, southeast
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, who was murdered in a
racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus in
Well Hall Road
The South Circular Road (formally the A205 and often simply called the South Circular) in south London, England, is a major road that runs from the Woolwich Ferry in the east to the Chiswick Flyover in the west via Eltham, Lee Green, Catfor ...
,
Eltham
Eltham ( ) is a district of southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich. It is east-southeast of Charing Cross, and is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London. The three wards of E ...
on the evening of 22 April 1993, when he was 18 years old.
The case became a
cause célèbre
A cause célèbre (,''Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged'', 12th Edition, 2014. S.v. "cause célèbre". Retrieved November 30, 2018 from https://www.thefreedictionary.com/cause+c%c3%a9l%c3%a8bre ,''Random House Kernerman Webs ...
: 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
In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defence (primarily in common law jurisdictions) that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare case ...
. Two of the perpetrators were convicted of murder on 3 January 2012.
[Stephen Lawrence murder: A timeline of how the story unfolded]
. BBC, 7 March 2016. Retrieved 1 May 2013.
After the initial investigation, six suspects were arrested but not charged;
a
private prosecution A private prosecution is a criminal proceeding initiated by an individual private citizen or private organisation (such as a prosecution association) instead of by a public prosecutor who represents the state. Private prosecutions are allowed in ma ...
subsequently initiated by Lawrence's family failed to secure convictions for any of the accused.
It was suggested during the investigation that Lawrence was killed because he was black, and that the handling of the case by the police and
Crown Prosecution Service
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the principal public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The main responsibilities of the CPS are to provide legal advi ...
was affected by issues of race. A 1998
public inquiry,
(see also summary: ) headed by
Sir William Macpherson, examined the original
Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) investigation and concluded that the 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 Criminal Justice Act 2003 (c. 44) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is a wide-ranging measure introduced to modernise many areas of the criminal justice system in England and Wales and, to a lesser extent, in Scotland a ...
. 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".
Jack Straw
John Whitaker Straw (born 3 August 1946) is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary ...
said that ordering the inquiry was the most important decision he made during his tenure as
home secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...
from 1997 to 2001. In 2010, the case was said to be "one of the highest-profile unsolved racially motivated murders".
On 18 May 2011, after a further review,
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.
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.
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. On 3 January 2012, Dobson and Norris were found guilty of Lawrence's murder;
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
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes fo ...
for an adult,
with minimum terms of 15 years 2 months and 14 years 3 months respectively for what the judge described as a "terrible and evil crime".
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
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) was a non-departmental public body in England and Wales responsible for overseeing the system for handling complaints made against police forces in England and Wales.
On 8 January 2018, th ...
had ruled that there was no basis for further investigation,
Home Secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...
Theresa May
Theresa Mary May, Lady May (; née Brasier; born 1 October 1956) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2016 to 2019. She previously served in David Cameron's cabi ...
ordered an independent inquiry by a prominent
QC into undercover policing and corruption, which was described as "devastating" when published in 2014.
An inquiry into whether members of the police force shielded the alleged killers was set up in October 2015.
Stephen Lawrence
Stephen Lawrence was born in
Greenwich District Hospital
Greenwich District Hospital was an acute district general hospital situated in the Maze Hill district of Greenwich, London. It was built in the 1960s on the site of St Alfege's Hospital, Greenwich, on the east side of Vanbrugh Hill, south of i ...
on 13 September 1974 to Jamaican parents who had emigrated to the UK in the 1960s. His father is Neville Lawrence, then a carpenter, and his mother is
Doreen, then a
special needs teacher.
Brought up in
Plumstead, South-East London, he was the eldest of three children, the others being Stuart (born 1976) and Georgina (born 1982).
During his teenage years, Lawrence excelled in running, competing for the local Cambridge Harriers athletics club, and appeared as an extra in
Denzel Washington's film ''
For Queen and Country
''For Queen and Country'' is a 1988 crime drama film co-written and directed by Martin Stellman and starring Denzel Washington in Panavision. Washington stars as Reuben James, a Black British former paratrooper, who joined the British Army to esc ...
''. At the time of his murder, he was studying technology and physics at the
Blackheath Bluecoat School
Blackheath Bluecoat Church of England School was a secondary school and sixth form located in the Blackheath Standard area of Blackheath, London, Blackheath, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. Its closure was announced in January 2012 and the sch ...
and English language and literature at
Woolwich College
Woolwich () is a district in southeast London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich.
The district's location on the River Thames led to its status as an important naval, military and industrial area; a role that was maintained throu ...
, and was hoping to become an architect.
Murder
Lawrence had spent the day of Thursday 22 April 1993 at Blackheath Bluecoat School.
After school, he visited shops in
Lewisham
Lewisham () is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified in the London Plan as one of ...
, then travelled by bus to an uncle's house in
Grove Park. He was joined there by
Duwayne Brooks
Duwayne Lloyd Anthony Brooks (born 27 September 1974) is a former councillor in the London Borough of Lewisham. He was a friend of Stephen Lawrence and was with him when he was murdered.
Early life
Brooks was born in Lewisham to Jamaican paren ...
, and they played
video game
Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
s until leaving at around 10:00 pm.
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
The South Circular Road (formally the A205 and often simply called the South Circular) in south London, England, is a major road that runs from the Woolwich Ferry in the east to the Chiswick Flyover in the west via Eltham, Lee Green, Catfor ...
.
Lawrence and Brooks arrived at the bus stop on Well Hall Road at 10:25 pm.
Lawrence walked along Well Hall Road to the junction of Dickson Road to see if he could see a bus coming.
Brooks was still on Well Hall Road, between Dickson Road and the roundabout with Rochester Way and
Westhorne Avenue.
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
A zebra crossing (British English) or a marked crosswalk (American English) is a pedestrian crossing marked with white stripes (zebra markings). Normally, pedestrians are afforded precedence over vehicular traffic, although the significance of ...
and moving towards them.
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.
The six attackers forced Lawrence down to the ground, then stabbed him to a depth of about on both sides of the front of his body, in the right
collarbone
The clavicle, or collarbone, is a slender, S-shaped long bone approximately 6 inches (15 cm) long that serves as a strut between the shoulder blade and the sternum (breastbone). There are two clavicles, one on the left and one on the right ...
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 ; he bled to death soon afterwards.
The pathologist recorded that Lawrence managing to run this distance with a partially collapsed lung was "a testimony to his physical fitness".
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
The Brook General Hospital (originally, 1896–1948, the Brook Fever Hospital) was the westernmost of three hospitals simultaneously situated on Shooter's Hill in southeast London in the Royal Borough of Greenwich (the others were the Royal ...
by 11:05 pm, but he was already dead.
Trials
Witnesses
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.
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
as the five main suspects.
The suspects were Gary Dobson, brothers Neil and Jamie Acourt, Luke Knight, and David Norris.
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.
The five suspects were previously involved in racist knife attacks around the Eltham area. 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. Neil's brother Jamie was accused of stabbing teenagers Darren Witham in May 1992 and Darren Giles in 1994, causing Giles to have a heart attack. 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.
Initial investigations, arrests and prosecutions
Within three days of the crime, prime suspects had been identified. No arrests were made, however, until over two weeks after the murder. 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
Major Investigation Teams (MIT) are the specialised homicide squads of the Metropolitan Police in London, England. Forming part of the Homicide and Major Crime Command, there are 24 MITs within the Met. MITs investigate cases of murder, mansla ...
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
Reasonable suspicion is a legal standard of proof in United States law that is less than probable cause, the legal standard for arrests and warrants, but more than an "inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or 'hunch; it must be based on "specif ...
– a basic point of criminal law.
[ – stated in the text to be "now, on the 49th day of the inquiry".]
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
A police lineup (in American English) or identity parade (in British English) is a process by which a crime victim or witness's putative identification of a suspect is confirmed to a level that can count as evidence at trial.
The suspect, alo ...
, 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
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the principal public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The main responsibilities of the CPS are to provide legal advi ...
citing insufficient evidence.
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.
Private prosecution
In September 1994,
Lawrence's family initiated a
private prosecution A private prosecution is a criminal proceeding initiated by an individual private citizen or private organisation (such as a prosecution association) instead of by a public prosecutor who represents the state. Private prosecutions are allowed in ma ...
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
Forensic identification is the application of forensic science, or "forensics", and technology to identify specific objects from the trace evidence they leave, often at a crime scene or the scene of an accident. Forensic means "for the courts".
H ...
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''.
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.
The Macpherson report endorsed the judgement, stating that "Mr Justice Curtis could
ave
''Alta Velocidad Española'' (''AVE'') is a service of high-speed rail in Spain operated by Renfe, the Spanish national railway company, at speeds of up to . As of December 2021, the Spanish high-speed rail network, on part of which the AVE s ...
properly reach
donly one conclusion" and that "
ere simply was no satisfactory evidence available".
Subsequent events (1994–2010)
An inquest into the death of Lawrence was held in February 1997. The five suspects refused to answer any questions, claiming privilege against self-incrimination. The inquest concluded on 13 February 1997, with the jury returning a verdict after 30 minutes' deliberation of unlawful killing "in a completely unprovoked racist attack by five white youths"; this finding went beyond the bounds of their instructions. On 14 February 1997, the ''
Daily Mail'' newspaper labelled all five suspects "murderers". The headline read, "Murderers: The Mail accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us." Underneath this headline appeared pictures of the five suspects: Dobson, Neil and Jamie Acourt, Knight, and Norris.
None of the men ever sued for
defamation and strong public opinions rose against the accused and the police who handled the case.
In July 1997 an inquiry was ordered by the
home secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...
to identify matters related to the killing, known as the Macpherson Report, which was completed in February 1999 ''(
see below)''. In 2002, David Norris and Neil Acourt were convicted and jailed for racially aggravated harassment after an incident involving a plain-clothes black police officer.
In 2005 the law was changed. As part of the findings on the Lawrence case, the Macpherson Report had recommended that the rule against
double jeopardy
In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defence (primarily in common law jurisdictions) that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare case ...
(the
common law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipres ...
rule that once acquitted an accused person could not be tried a second time for the same crime) should be
repeal
A repeal (O.F. ''rapel'', modern ''rappel'', from ''rapeler'', ''rappeler'', revoke, ''re'' and ''appeler'', appeal) is the removal or reversal of a law. There are two basic types of repeal; a repeal with a re-enactment is used to replace the law ...
ed in murder cases, and that it should be possible to subject an acquitted murder suspect to a second trial if "fresh and viable" new evidence later came to light. The
Law Commission
A law commission, law reform commission, or law revision commission is an independent body set up by a government to conduct law reform; that is, to consider the state of laws in a jurisdiction and make recommendations or proposals for legal chang ...
later added its support to this in its report "Double Jeopardy and Prosecution Appeals" (2001). A parallel report into the
criminal justice system
Criminal justice is the delivery of justice to those who have been accused of committing crimes. The criminal justice system is a series of government agencies and institutions. Goals include the rehabilitation of offenders, preventing other ...
by
Lord Justice Auld, a former senior presiding judge for England and Wales, had also commenced in 1999 and was published as the Auld Report 6 months after the Law Commission report. It opined that the Law Commission had been unduly cautious by limiting the scope to murder and that "the exceptions should
..extend to other grave offences punishable with life and/or long terms of imprisonment as Parliament might specify."
These recommendations were implemented within the
Criminal Justice Act 2003
The Criminal Justice Act 2003 (c. 44) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is a wide-ranging measure introduced to modernise many areas of the criminal justice system in England and Wales and, to a lesser extent, in Scotland a ...
, and this provision came into force in April 2005.
[Double jeopardy law ushered out](_blank)
BBC News. 3 April 2005 It opened murder and certain other serious crimes (including
manslaughter,
kidnapping, rape,
armed robbery
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take anything of value by force, threat of force, or by use of fear. According to common law, robbery is defined as taking the property of another, with the intent to permanently deprive the perso ...
, and some drug crimes) to a second prosecution, regardless of when committed, with two conditions – the
retrial
A new trial or retrial is a recurrence of a court case. A new trial may potentially be ordered for some or all of the matters at issue in the original trial. Depending upon the rules of the jurisdiction and the decision of the court that ordered ...
must be approved by the
Director of Public Prosecutions, and the
Court of Appeal must agree to quash the original acquittal because of new and compelling evidence.
On 27 July 2006, the ''
Daily Mail'' repeated its now famous "Murderers" front page. In July 2010, ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'' described the Lawrence killing – despite it having happened more than 17 years previously – as "one of the highest-profile unsolved racially motivated murders".
Cold case review and new evidence
In June 2006, a
cold case
A cold case is a crime, or a suspected crime, that has not yet been fully resolved and is not the subject of a current criminal investigation, but for which new information could emerge from new witness testimony, re-examined archives, new or r ...
review commenced, involving a full re-examination of the forensic evidence.
Initially this was held in secrecy and not publicised;
however, in November 2007, police confirmed they were investigating new scientific evidence.
The re-examination was led by forensic scientist
Angela Gallop
Angela Mary Cecilia Gallop (born 2 January 1950)
is a British forensic scientist.
She began her career with the Forensic Science Service in 1974. Since 1986, she has run her own forensic service companies. Her findings helped solve notorious ...
.
The most important of the new evidence comprised:
* A microscopic (0.5 x 0.25 mm) stain of Lawrence's blood in Dobson's jacket.
It had dried into the fibres and its tiny size implied this had happened very quickly. The forensic analysis concluded it had not been transferred there from elsewhere as dried blood or later soaked into the fabric, but was deposited fresh, and would have dried almost immediately after being deposited due to its microscopic size.
* Fibres from Lawrence's clothing, and hairs with a 99.9% chance
of coming from Lawrence, found on Norris and Dobson's clothes from the time or in the evidence bag holding them.
(The defence later argued unsuccessfully at trial that these were present due to contamination or lack of care of evidence
).
The police unit manager involved in the matter commented that the new evidence was only found because of scientific developments and developments in forensic approaches that had taken place since 1996 which allowed microscopic blood stains and hair fragments to be
analysed for DNA and other microscopic evidence to be found and used forensically.
2011–2012 trial
Gary Dobson and David Norris were arrested and charged without publicity on 8 September 2010
and on 23 October 2010 the
Director of Public Prosecutions,
Keir Starmer
Sir Keir Rodney Starmer (; born 2 September 1962) is a British politician and barrister who has served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party since 2020. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St Pancras s ...
QC, applied to the
Court of Appeal for Dobson's original acquittal to be quashed.
Dobson was in prison at the time for
drug dealing. Norris had not been previously acquitted, so no application was necessary in his case. For legal reasons, to protect the investigation and ensure a fair hearing,
reporting restrictions were put in place at the commencement of these proceedings; the arrests and subsequent developments were not publicly reported at the time.
Dobson's acquittal was quashed following a two-day hearing on 11 and 12 April 2011, enabling his retrial.
On 18 May 2011, the Court of Appeal handed down its judgment and the reporting restrictions were partially lifted.
It was announced by the
Crown Prosecution Service
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the principal public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The main responsibilities of the CPS are to provide legal advi ...
that the two would face trial for Lawrence's murder in light of "new and substantial evidence".
The judgment of the court stated that "
reliable, the new scientific evidence would place Dobson in very close proximity indeed to Stephen Lawrence at the moment of and in the immediate aftermath of the attack, proximity, moreover, for which no innocent explanation can be discerned".
The ruling also emphasised that this was to be "a new trial of a defendant who, we repeat, is presumed in law to be innocent," and suggested a cautious and fact-based reporting style to avoid
contempt of court or risk of prejudice to the future trial.
A
jury
A jury is a sworn body of people (jurors) convened to hear evidence and render an impartial verdict (a finding of fact on a question) officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment.
Juries developed in England du ...
was
selected on 14 November 2011,
and the trial, presided over by
Mr Justice Treacy, began the next day at the Central Criminal Court.
With the prosecution led by
Mark Ellison QC, the case centred on the new forensic evidence and whether it demonstrated the defendant's involvement in the murder, or was the result of later contamination due to police handling.
On 3 January 2012, after the jury had deliberated for just over 8 hours, Dobson and Norris were found guilty of Lawrence's murder.
The two were sentenced on 4 January 2012 to
detention at Her Majesty's Pleasure, equivalent to a
life sentence
Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes fo ...
for an adult,
with minimum terms of 15 years and 2 months for Dobson and 14 years and 3 months for Norris.
Time spent on remand by Dobson was not deducted from his minimum term to ensure his existing sentence for drug-related offences was served.
The judge's sentencing remarks were later published in full online.
The judge stated that the sentences reflected that Dobson and Norris were
juveniles (Dobson 17, and Norris 16) at the time of the offence, which took place before the
Criminal Justice Act 2003
The Criminal Justice Act 2003 (c. 44) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is a wide-ranging measure introduced to modernise many areas of the criminal justice system in England and Wales and, to a lesser extent, in Scotland a ...
; the starting point for the minimum term was therefore 12 years. The judge acknowledged this was "lower than some might expect".
[ – article explaining sentencing considerations where the crime took place many years previously.] A similar crime committed in 2011 as an adult would have justified a minimum sentence of 30 years.
(This is occasionally misreported as 25 years, the starting point for "bringing and using a weapon";
murder with racial motive incurs a higher 30-year starting point.
)
Immediate aftermath of trial
Following the 2012 convictions,
Paul Dacre
Paul Michael Dacre (; born 14 November 1948) is an English journalist and the former long-serving editor of the British right-wing tabloid the '' Daily Mail''. He is also editor-in-chief of DMG Media, which publishes the ''Daily Mail'', ''The ...
, ''Daily Mail''
editor since 1992, issued a comment on his 1997 headline decision.
Others have argued that, in writing the above, Dacre was overselling his involvement in what had finally been achieved. For instance, an article in the February 2012 edition of the ''
Socialist Review'' stated:
Appeals
On 5 January 2012, it was reported that the
Attorney General was reviewing the minimum terms at the request of a member of the public, to determine whether he believed them to be
"unduly lenient", and if so whether to apply to the Court of Appeal for an increase in the minimum terms.
Juvenile minimum life sentences in a 2000 review (i.e. before the 2003 act passed into law) varied from a "most common" minimum of 10 years to a maximum of 20, placing Dobson and Norris in the middle of that range.
On 1 February 2012, the Attorney General announced that he would not be referring the sentences to the Court of Appeal, as he believed that "the minimum terms
ere... within the appropriate range of sentences".
On 30 January 2012, it emerged that Norris and Dobson were seeking leave from the Court of Appeal to appeal against their convictions.
On 23 August 2012, it was reported that Norris and Dobson had lost the first round of their appeal. On 15 March 2013, it was announced that Gary Dobson had dropped his appeal against his murder conviction.
On 18 May 2022, it was reported that David Norris's request to be moved to an open prison in advance of his possible release was denied.
08
Other inquiries and investigations
The Macpherson Inquiry
On 31 July 1997, the
home secretary
The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national s ...
,
Jack Straw
John Whitaker Straw (born 3 August 1946) is a British politician who served in the Cabinet from 1997 to 2010 under the Labour governments of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. He held two of the traditional Great Offices of State, as Home Secretary ...
, 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''.
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"
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
First aid is the first and immediate assistance given to any person with either a minor or serious illness or injury, with care provided to preserve life, prevent the condition from worsening, or to promote recovery. It includes initial in ...
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
The Scarman report was commissioned by the UK Government following the 1981 Brixton riots. Lord Scarman was appointed by then Home Secretary William Whitelaw on 14 April 1981 (two days after the rioting ended) to hold the enquiry into the riots ...
, compiled following
race-related riots in
Brixton and
Toxteth
Toxteth is an inner-city area of Liverpool in the historic county of Lancashire and the ceremonial county of Merseyside.
Toxteth is located to the south of Liverpool city centre, bordered by Aigburth, Canning, Dingle, and Edge Hill.
The area ...
, had been ignored.
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
Reasonable suspicion is a legal standard of proof in United States law that is less than probable cause, the legal standard for arrests and warrants, but more than an "inchoate and unparticularized suspicion or 'hunch; it must be based on "specif ...
, a basic point of criminal law.
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
In jurisprudence, double jeopardy is a procedural defence (primarily in common law jurisdictions) that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following an acquittal or conviction and in rare case ...
rule and criminalising racist statements made in private. Macpherson also called for reform in the
British Civil Service
His Majesty's Home Civil Service, also known as His Majesty's Civil Service, the Home Civil Service, or colloquially as the Civil Service is the permanent bureaucracy or secretariat of Crown employees that supports His Majesty's Government, which ...
, local governments, the
National Health Service
The National Health Service (NHS) is the umbrella term for the publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1948, they have been funded out of general taxation. There are three systems which are referred to using the " ...
, schools, and the judicial system, to address issues of institutional racism.
The report was criticised at the time by
Michael Gove (later
Secretary of State for Education
The secretary of state for education, also referred to as the education secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for the work of the Department for Education. The incumbent is a member of the C ...
and
Lord Chancellor
The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. Th ...
) in ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'', who said, "The tendentious reasoning and illiberal recommendations of that document have been brilliantly anatomised by the ethical socialists
Norman Dennis
Norman Dennis (16 August 1929 – 13 November 2010) was a British sociologist.
Born one of four sons to a tram driver, Norman Dennis was educated at Bede Collegiate Boys' School and was offered a place at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, but decl ...
and George Erdos and the Kurdish academic Ahmed al-Shahi in the
Civitas pamphlet ''Racist Murder and Pressure Group Politics''." The pamphlet referred to by Gove is a publication by the right-wing think tank Civitas, which criticises the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, its procedures, its findings and its reception, as well as broadly exploring what it calls “The fanatical mindset... of the militant anti-racist” with references to
Malcolm X
Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of I ...
among others.
Public complaints about mishandling of case
In 1997, Lawrence's family registered a formal complaint with the
Police Complaints Authority
This is a list of notable authorities, agencies and similar bodies that are responsible for investigating or responding to complaints about police.
Asia
Hong Kong
*Independent Police Complaints Council India
* Police Complaints Authority (In ...
(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.
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.
Concerns and inquiries of alleged police corruption and undercover officer conduct
Investigation into police corruption (2006)
On 25 July 2006, the
Independent Police Complaints Commission
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) was a non-departmental public body in England and Wales responsible for overseeing the system for handling complaints made against police forces in England and Wales.
On 8 January 2018, th ...
(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.
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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.
, told a BBC investigation that Clifford Norris was paying 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.
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
later stated that the claims made in the programme were unfounded.
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".
, patron of the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust, agreed: "Lots of people said they gave the police evidence which was never produced."
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
.
''. In the interview Francis stated that while he was working undercover within an anti-racist campaign group in the mid-1990s, he was constantly pressured by superiors to "smear" the credibilities of the family of Lawrence so as to put an end to campaigns for a better investigation into Lawrence's death. After the allegation, the home secretary,
pledged to be "ruthless about purging corruption from the police", and the Prime Minister,
ordered Police to investigate the allegations, saying of them that he was "deeply worried about the reports".
s, said he would investigate the allegations as part of the inquiry. In October 2015 an inquiry was set up by the
to investigate allegations that members of the police force shielded the alleged killers.
ruled that there was no new evidence to warrant further investigation. After discussions with Doreen Lawrence, the home secretary, Theresa May commissioned
QC to review Scotland Yard's investigations into alleged police corruption.
The report, titled "The Stephen Lawrence Independent Review", was presented to
on 6 March 2014.
said the report, which prompted an inquiry into undercover policing, was "devastating". Ellison's report also showed that there was substantial evidence linking an alleged corrupt police officer with involvement in the murder of
.
An annual architectural award, the Stephen Lawrence Prize, was established in 1998 by the
, 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."
In 1995 a memorial plaque was set into the pavement at the spot where he was killed on Well Hall Road. The plaque has been vandalised several times since then.
designed a documentary play based on the trial, called ''The Colour of Justice''. It was staged at the
and was later filmed by the BBC.
for the 20th anniversary of the murder.
On 7 February 2008, the Stephen Lawrence Centre, designed by architect
, south-east London.
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
.
The Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust is a national educational charity committed to the advancement of
. The Trust provides educational and employability workshops and mentoring schemes. It also awards architectural and landscape bursaries.
to young people from ethnic minorities.
on 6 September 2013, and is formally styled ''Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, of
after a location in a Commonwealth realm outside the United Kingdom. She sits on the
benches in the House of Lords as a working peer specialising in race and diversity.
On 23 April 2018, at a memorial service to mark the 25th anniversary of his death, Prime Minister
announced that "Stephen Lawrence Day" would be an annual national commemoration of his death on 22 April every year starting in 2019. Doreen Lawrence made a statement that Stephen Lawrence Day would be "an opportunity for young people to use their voices and should be embedded in our education and wider system regardless of the government of the day".
Part of the
's Student Union building was named after Stephen in 1993, before being refurbished and renamed the ‘Stephen Lawrence Media Centre’ in 2013.
A Stephen Lawrence Research Centre was built at
, located inside the Hugh Aston building. Lawrence's mother was appointed as Chancellor of the university in January 2016. The Centre will host a series of special events for the 30th anniversary of Stephen's murder in April 2023.
as Doreen and Neville Lawrence. A three-part sequel series, entitled
, was broadcast in 2021. Quarshie reprised his role as Neville, alongside
has written about the Lawrence case, both before and subsequent to the prosecution. He was awarded a Special Campaign Award as part of the 2012
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 ''
'' in April 2018.
– still-unsolved UK case in which the alleged killers similarly refused to answer questions at the inquest
*
, ''The Macpherson Report: 'Anti-racist' Hysteria and the Sovietization of the United Kingdom'', published by Right Now Press Ltd., London, 2001 (P/B),
* Green, David G, (Editor), ''Institutional Racism and the Police: Fact or Fiction'', published by
, 2000,
* Dennis, Norman; Erdos, George; Al-Shahi, Ahmed; ''Racist Murder and Pressure Group Politics: The Macpherson Report and the Police'', published by The Institute for the Study of Civil Society, 2000,
*