Investigators from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) have decided that the four officers who were supposed to investigate Stephen Lawrence’s murder will not face charges. The decision comes 31 years after Stephen was murdered in an unprovoked racist attack. Stephen’s family have been campaigning for justice for that length of time. His mother Doreen Lawrence said:
Today’s decision by the CPS marks a new low in the way the criminal justice has treated me and my family. The decision of the CPS not to prosecute the senior officers who were involved in the investigation of my son’s case is unjustifiable. The reviewed decision, issued today, makes not a single mention of racism.
She continued:
The decision today means – as things stand – that not a single officer will ever be held responsible in any way, shape or form for the obvious and unforgivable failings in Stephen’s case. I am bewildered, disappointed, and angry at the decision. I am sure the public will be too.
‘High threshold’
The Guardian reported:
In a 23-page letter, seen by the Guardian, the CPS said even if the former officers had made errors there was no evidence to show their mistakes were deliberate, or corrupt, or that they should have known better: “What is alleged is that each of the suspects made a number of mistakes in the execution of their duties. The law has made clear that mistakes, even serious mistakes, by public officers will not reach the high threshold [for prosecution].”
In other words, the CPS still maintains that whilst the officers investigating Stephen Lawrence’s murder made mistakes, the CPS do not consider these mistakes to be “deliberate” or a sign of corruption.
In 2021, the Canary’s Sophia Purdy-Moore reported:
The 1998 inquiry into police mishandling of Lawrence’s case concluded with the MacPherson report, “one of the most important moments in the modern history of criminal justice in Britain”. It found the Metropolitan police to be institutionally racist and set out 70 recommendations on how to tackle racism in British policing, education, legislation, and public life.
The MacPherson report should have been a watershed moment in British policing. Instead, it has merely been a marker in Britain’s long history of anti-Black, racist policing.
“Bungled”
Journalist Lorraine King commiserated with Stephen Lawrence’s family:
I can't think of another family who have been let down so much by the authorities more than Stephen Lawrence's.
From day one they were treated inhumanly because Met Police were institutionally racist then & still are.
Now the officers who bungled the original case face no action https://t.co/ZzPzM1Cbgb— Lorraine King (@lorrainemking) June 19, 2024
Journalist Tom Fowler, and spy cops investigator, said:
This very clear: Police corruption is legal in the UK.
Hard to think of any kind of movement more widely respected, mainstream & accepted than the Stephen Lawrence Family Campaign.
Consider how much work has been done to ensure they are denied justice.https://t.co/rdAVtUQ2vd— Tom Fowler (@tombfowler) June 18, 2024
The Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) were unsurprised:
Detectives repeatedly failed to investigate, there were credible allegations of corruption and the Met spied on Stephen Lawrence's grieving family to try and protect their reputation. This decision was therefore entirely predictable https://t.co/yLnWPMBox4
— Netpol (@netpol) June 18, 2024
One charity expressed their deep disappointment:
Action for Race Equality is deeply disappointed by the Crown Prosecution Service’s decision to not bring criminal charges against the detectives involved in the original investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
Stephen Lawrence was failed by the authorities responsible for investigating his murder and that failure continues to impact his family, friends, and Black communities across the UK today.
Their statement continued:
The CPS decision denies the clear need for the detectives to be held responsible for the incompetence identified by Macpherson. This indicates that the Criminal Justice System is still unwilling to recognise the failures that uphold an institutionally racist system and speaks to a wider reluctance to change.
Stephen Lawrence: systemic failings
It is typical of the abject racism rife in British policing that the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence continues to be mishandled some 30 years later.
His loved ones have had to campaign and insist that police treat his murder investigation with the respect it deserves. This latest decision from the CPS to not charge officers accused of misconduct is yet another indictment of the rotting system that allowed Stephen’s death in the first place.
It’s an affront to Black communities in Britain, and a devastating reminder that not only does anti-Black racism kill, it also inflicts violence long after the point of death.
Featured image via YouTube screenshot/BBC Maestro
