Even after 30 years, no one from the Metropolitan Police has described to me how my son was murdered. Yet from various eyewitness accounts, his last moments will for ever torment me.
The most compelling recollections came from Stephen’s best friend, Duwayne Brooks, who was waiting for a bus with him when those teenage boys charged across Well Hall Road with weapons in their hands and hatred in their hearts.
From the outset, Duwayne told the police there were at least six attackers, and that the one who led them – shouting that racially-charged rallying-cry ‘Wot, wot n****r’ – had wavy, fair hair, whereas the other gang members had dark hair. At least one other witness supported this vital piece of evidence.
The revelation that the police chose to ignore it, or at the very least failed to investigate it, allowing the ‘sixth boy’ in this case, Matthew White, to remain free for 28 years before he died, is simply appalling.
However, during the 30 years we have spent fighting for justice for Stephen, we have uncovered so many flaws in the police investigation that it hardly comes as a surprise. Almost from the outset we have had to rely on journalists to bring us the truth.
Even after 30 years, no one from the Metropolitan Police has described to me how my son was murdered
During the 30 years we have spent fighting for justice for Stephen, we have uncovered so many flaws in the police investigation that it hardly comes as a surprise
Down the years, the Daily Mail has fought our cause admirably, publishing crucial stories that helped to put two of Stephen’s killers in prison, while White’s part in the murder was exposed by the BBC. If only the Met had done its job with as much conviction as the Press, Matthew White might well have been caught too.
When I came here from Jamaica in 1960, I arrived safe in the belief that London had the world’s finest police force. The question that troubles me is: why have they so often let my family down?
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Sadly, I have concluded that, partly because of their own prejudices, they quickly decided the motive for Stephen’s murder, identified a culprit – and stuck to this hastily concocted theory – even though it was obviously wrong.
As my son was a black boy, out at night, they decided – without any evidence whatsoever – that Stephen (a dutiful scholar with ambitions to be an architect) must be a criminal. Only hours after he died, when they should have been looking for White and the other racist gangsters, they were asking me if Stephen possessed any woolly gloves, the type worn by burglars.
That night, their wild theory went, Duwayne had probably argued with Stephen at the bus stop and stabbed him.
To sustain this ridiculous supposition, they had to prove Duwayne to be a liar – so they gave no credence to his evidence, and never even bothered to look for the fair-haired sixth attacker he described.
Did the police make this error, and so many others, because they were racially prejudiced, inept, or corrupt?
I think it was a bit of all three. What I do believe is that if Clive Driscoll – the man who secured the convictions of David Norris and Gary Dobson in 2012 – had been permitted to continue the investigation, White’s involvement would have been detected long before now.
When Dobson and Norris were jailed, the judge ordered the Met to continue hunting the other gang members. Clive was keen to do just that. But Cressida Dick, then the Met commissioner, insisted he must retire without completing the job, and I have never understood why.
My own view is that something about Stephen’s case is still being hidden. Something that would explain all these catastrophic police failings.
We might not know the answer until after I’m gone. But I’m 81 now and I’ll keep on searching for the truth until I draw my last breath.
Dr Lawrence was talking to David Jones
