Three decades after a racist gang murdered Stephen Lawrence, Duwayne Brooks is taking matters into his own hands.
As a teenager he saw his close friend stabbed to death at a London bus stop.
Since then, despite reports, damning insights and statistics detailing racism within the Metropolitan Police, hundreds more have died and discrimination continues as families seek justice.
The reckoning for the Met and other forces following Stephen’s death exactly 30 years ago today was supposed to change policing for ever.
But that day has never come.
So Duwayne has thrown his hat into the ring to become the Conservative candidate to replace Labour’s Sadiq Khan as London Mayor.
He told the Mirror: “What happened then is still happening.
“The victims and the way they are treated, that’s still happening.
“Racism, discrimination: still happening. Poor policing, poor leadership: still happening. Young people dying from knife injuries: still happening. Politics getting in the way of doing what’s right: still happening.
“As long as all those things are still happening, there can’t be closure. People still experience what I did as a child.”
Duwayne had mayoral ambitions in 2018 but commitments took him abroad at short notice. But now, during our two-hour chat, he appears determined to channel his energy into bridge-building, fighting for justice and holding the police to account.
He says: “If the leaders we elect can’t control a police service that’s supposed to protect us then we need to elect new leaders.”
Duwayne and Stephen were both 18 when Stephen was fatally stabbed in Eltham, South-East London. “I dialled 999 from a phone box,” Duwayne remembers. “The address in the box was wrong. An off-duty police officer took over the call and help arrived but it was too late.”
Gary Dobson, 47, and David Norris, 46, are behind bars for Stephen’s murder – the only gang members convicted.
Duwayne says of his friend’s killing: “Why? Why him? You have some friends who are amazing and others not so much. He was most definitely amazing.
“He wasn’t violent, aggressive or argumentative. We used to sleep head to toe, play video games all night and watch kung-fu films. Few people knew him as a friend more than me.
“Nobody could say he was into criminal activity or anything negative. Ever. That’s why I vowed nothing would be done to damage his name.
“The police on that night tried to tell me it wasn’t a racist attack. I told them they called us ‘N*****, n*****’.
“They actually told me that it was just a nickname. They tried to say he was a burglar. Then it was: ‘Are you sure he didn’t mess with some white girl and her brothers came to sort him out?’ If I wasn’t as strong they’d have destroyed me and his character.”
The flawed investigation in the years after Stephen’s death exposed the extent of racism and corruption in the Met. Detectives bullied Duwayne, accusing him of making up his story.
A 2014 report revealed that, like Stephen’s parents, he was subjected to surveillance and harassment. This week’s claim from Greater Manchester Police Chief Stephen Watson that no force is institutionally racist has reinforced the scale of the problem.
Duwayne has little time for soundbites from new Met chief Sir Mark Rowley. He continues: “When someone says: ‘I’m a new commissioner and we’re gonna fix it’, I say: ‘You’re talking out of your a***.’
“If I was a Mayor of London, do you think we’d have a police force allowing racists and homophobes to fester?
“The first thing I would do is scrap the Department of Professional Standards. Police investigating police?
“I would have a team with ex-officers who know their stuff. I’d have lefty lawyers, as they call them, because they get to the truth.”
“Also the National Police Federation. That would be my team. The whole communication aspect, the way the Met communicates with the public, when critical incidents happen, that changes overnight.
“Body-worn video becomes available within seven days. Basic things that currently don’t happen.”
Duwayne is aware he will attract criticism for standing as a Tory but argues it is in line with his values of personal responsibility, respect for law and order and ambitions to get a good education for his children in a society loaded against Black men.
While events around the country will commemorate Stephen Lawrence Day today, Duwayne will spend this Saturday appreciating the life he has been blessed to hold on to.
“This journey is for a reason,” he says. “I don’t know what that reason is. But it’s for a reason.”
