1993 killing in London
Stephen Lawrence (13September 1974 – 22April 1993) was an 18-year-old black British citizen from Plumstead, southeast London, who was murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus on Well Hall Road, Eltham, on the evening of 22April 1993. 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 3January 2012.
After the initial investigation, five suspects were arrested but not charged; a private prosecution 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 Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was affected by issues of race. A 1998 public inquiry, 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 It also recommended that the double jeopardy rule should be repealed in murder cases to allow a retrial upon new and compelling evidence: this was effected in 2005 upon enactment of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.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". Jack Straw said that ordering the inquiry was the most important decision he made during his tenure as home secretary from 1997 to 2001. In 2010, the Lawrence case was said to be "one of the highest-profile unsolved racially motivated murders".
On 18May 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 3January 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 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 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. An inquiry into whether members of the police force shielded the alleged killers was set up in October 2009.
Stephen Lawrence.
Stephen Adrian Lawrence was born in Greenwich District Hospital on 13September 1974 to Jamaican parents who had emigrated to the UK in the 1960s. His father was Neville Lawrence, then a carpenter, and his mother was 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". At the time of his murder, he was studying technology and physics at the Blackheath Bluecoat School and English language and literature at Woolwich College, and was hoping to become an architect.
Attack.
Lawrence had spent the day of 22April 1993 at Blackheath Bluecoat School. 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 10:00pm. 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.
Lawrence and Brooks arrived at the bus stop on Well Hall Road at 10:25pm. 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 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 a racial slur as they all quickly crossed the road and "engulfed" Lawrence.
The six aggressors 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 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 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 suffer a cardiac arrest. 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. The police also did not investigate the suspects' houses for four days. Detective Superintendent Brian Weeden, the officer who had been leading the murder investigation from its third day, and who led the murder squad for 14 months, explained to the McPherson inquiry in 1998 that part of the reason no arrests had taken place by the fourth day after the killing (Monday 26April) was that he had not known the law allowed arrest upon reasonable suspicion – a basic point of criminal law.
On 7May 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 3June. Neil Acourt, picked out at an identity parade, and Luke Knight were charged with murder on 13May and 23June 1993 respectively, but the charges were dropped on 29July 1993, the Crown Prosecution Service citing insufficient evidence.
An internal review was opened in August 1993 by the Metropolitan Police. On 16April 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. The main issue was with the identification evidence by Brooks, which was seen as both tainted by procedural irregularities, and not strong enough under case law: this view was borne out by the later private prosecution.
Private prosecution.
In September 1994, 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 leading counsel Michael Mansfield QC, assisted by Tanoo Mylvaganam and Annie Dixon who all worked "pro bono". The charges against Acourt and Norris were dropped before the trial for lack of evidence. On 23April 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 costs of the prosecution were paid out of the public purse.
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".
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 13February 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 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 (the common law rule that once acquitted an accused person could not be tried a second time for the same crime) should be repealed 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 later added its support to this in its report "Double Jeopardy and Prosecution Appeals" (2001). A parallel report into the criminal justice system 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