My reaction to the Daily Mail’s shocking story yesterday about the Stephen Lawrence murder inquiry was sheer disbelief – and a weary lack of surprise.
It horrifies me there could have been a sixth suspect for the killing of the 18-year-old in 1993, and that three decades of police blunders and cover-ups meant this was never widely known.
This murder was a watershed moment for race relations in Britain and a defining incident for the Metropolitan Police. A public inquiry found the force to be ‘institutionally racist’.
An unknown suspected participant in the murderous attack, disguised for 30 years under the label Witness K, has finally been exposed as Matthew White, a lifelong criminal who died in 2021.
How the existence of a sixth suspect could have been kept hidden boggles the mind – but no travesty committed by the Met’s senior management is too appalling to seem impossible to me.
My reaction to the Daily Mail’s shocking story yesterday about the Stephen Lawrence murder inquiry was sheer disbelief – and a weary lack of surprise
An unknown suspected participant in the murderous attack, disguised for 30 years under the label Witness K, has finally been exposed as Matthew White (pictured), a lifelong criminal who died in 2021
Their weasel-worded apologies are always the same, talking of ‘missed opportunities’ without ever being backed up by real change.
When I asked to meet current Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, I was turned down. In 2015 I was falsely accused of heinous crimes, including serial child murder, in Operation Midland – which investigated claims of abuse by VIPs based on the bogus testimony of fantasist Carl Beech. I have many unanswered questions.
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I was told a meeting was impossible because of ongoing legal proceedings around one of my complaints.
The plain fact is London’s police force has been sinking lower for decades. Nothing less than drastic institutional change will do the job now. Despite its failings, I still believe the majority of frontline officers are decent people. But they are led by donkeys – and there are some rancid apples in the barrel. PC Wayne Couzens, who abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard in 2021, was one.
So was PC David Carrick, who was sentenced in March for 85 offences against 12 women over two decades.
But in both cases, the greater crime was the cover-up within the force which refused to heed warnings about the behaviour of these men.
Also to blame is the Independent Office for Police Conduct, whose duty is to police the police.
In 2021 at the Commons home affairs committee, Lady Brittan – the widow of former home secretary Leon Brittan, who was also falsely accused in Operation Midland – called the police complaints system ‘unbelievably opaque’. I concur: It is purposefully debilitating. It weakens complainants until they give up and go away.
I suggest three solutions: Firstly, an independent and robust whistle-blower system. Officers should have a mechanism they can confidently use. Secondly, to appoint a Royal Commission to identify the role of the police, its staffing and funding.
Thirdly, for Lord Hogan-Howe and Dame Cressida Dick to be stripped of their honours. How can we trust Sir Mark to be a reforming commissioner when his predecessors have been rewarded for their failures with a peerage and a damehood?
Nothing can be done now to erase 30 years of pain for Stephen’s parents. It sickens me that they have been made to endure so much that could have been avoided by an honest investigation into their son’s murder.
The Lawrence investigation has been a travesty for three decades. We cannot allow it to go on any longer.
