A searchlight shining into police bigotry: the Independent year

The Lawrence Case

THERE WAS a scene in the early weeks of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry that could have come straight from a Joe Orton farce.

In the witness box was Inspector Ian Little, the police officer entrusted with the delicate task of liaising with Stephen's parents, Neville and Doreen Lawrence, on the night of the murder in Eltham, south-east London. Insp Little was asked what words of comfort he had offered the Lawrences as they waited outside the resuscitation room at the hospital.

What he told them, he said, was this. "We've got a young lad in there, he's dead, we don't know who he is and we'd like to clarify that point. If it's not your son, all well and good, but we need to know and I'm sure you'd like to know as well."

Such moments, and there were many of them, highlighted the extent to which the Metropolitan Police failed the Lawrences in their direst hour. But when the public inquiry delivers its verdict early next year on a police force regarded as one of the world's finest, gross insensitivity is sure to be the least serious of its findings.

The eight-month inquiry exposed police incompetence on a grand scale. But as the weeks went by, the inquiry, chaired by Sir William Macpherson of Cluny, grew into something far larger than was envisaged by Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, who set its original remit.

The case was not just about a murder investigation. It was about the fragility of race relations at the end of the 20th century, about the bigotry and prejudice that still pollute public life.

The inquiry opened almost five years to the day after Stephen, a talented 18-year-old, was accosted and stabbed while waiting for a bus home.

The intervening period had brought fresh torment for his parents. First the Crown Prosecution Service dropped its case against the prime suspects: Neil Acourt, his brother Jamie, David Norris, Luke Knight and Gary Dobson. Then an attempt by the Lawrences to bring a private prosecution collapsed. At the inquest, they watched in impotent fury as the five suspects mockingly invoked their right to silence.

It was the cumulative effect of the testimony by the 65 police witnesses that was more shocking. It emerged that detectives received dozens of tip-offs in the first 48 hours naming the killers, but delayed making arrests for a fortnight. The senior detective in charge was not aware of the legal grounds on which arrests could be made.

The inquiry was told that key witnesses were not followed up for weeks, and only cursory searches were made of the suspects' homes. The question was: had police been staggeringly incompetent, or had corruption and racism played a part?

The corruption theory was that David Norris's father, Clifford, a gangster and known associate of one Met officer, had paid off the detectives. The evidence was inconclusive. The allegations of racism, though, were far more compelling.

Some observers believe the way in which ethnic minority communities are policed is a litmus test of justice. If that is so, the Lawrence case has highlighted the chasm between high ideals and the harsh reality of life in multi-cultural Britain.