The father of Stephen Lawrence has said remaining gang members who murdered his teenage son must be brought to justice if Met chief Sir Mark Rowley is to rebuild trust in the force.
Dr Neville Lawrence, 81, wants an outside police force brought in to investigate potential leads missed by the bungled original probe, which was hampered by racism and alleged corruption.
Stephen, 18, was stabbed to death by five or six men in a racist attack at a bus stop in Eltham in April 1993. But only two of his killers have faced justice, with Gary Dobson and David Norris jailed for life in 2012.
Met Commissioner Sir Mark marked his first anniversary in the job yesterday setting out how he would restore public confidenceafter a series of scandals.
Speaking on what would have been Stephen’s 49th birthday, Mr Lawrence told the Standard from his home in Jamaica: “If there’s a possibility of justice, Sir Mark must act. But from what I can see, nothing has changed. Black people don’t feel protected by the Met.
“I’m so distraught and angry. One incident, caused by people I’ve never met, has destroyed my life completely. I don’t feel safe in England. I’m alone in a house 5,000 miles away on the day my son was born, unable to lay flowers at the spot where he died.”
In June, the BBC and Met named Matthew White, who died aged 50 in 2021, as the sixth suspect and outlined police mistakes that let him evade justice for three decades. Baroness Louise Casey’s scathing review branded the Met institutionally racist, like the 1999 Macpherson report into Stephen’s killing, but Sir Mark does not accept the label.
He says the “sad truth” is Stephen’s investigation may never progress because mistakes in the original inquiry were so grave.
