The friend who was with Stephen Lawrence when the black teenager was murdered by a racist gang has called for a new Scotland Yard review of the crime to “get to the bottom” of why the killers were never brought to justice.
Duwayne Brooks, the surviving victim of the racist attack at a bus stop in Eltham in April 1993 in which 18-year-old Stephen was fatally stabbed, said he believed that “serious” errors were still being made by the Met after its decision to close the investigation.
Only two men, Gary Dobson and David Norris, of the five men originally named as prime suspects in the case, have been convicted after a succession of investigatory failures and corruption allowed the others to escape justice.
A sixth suspect, named last year as Matthew White, has also since been identified, but died in 2021 aged 50. The Met have agreed to call in an another force to review its handling of the case amid renewed pleas from Stephen’s mother, Baroness Lawrence, and others, for the investigation to be reopened.
But Mr Brooks said he feared that a leaked draft of the terms of the review indicated it was not going to achieve the results needed.
“I want them to look at why the same suspects for the murder were not charged in relation to the assault on me,” he said. “The draft shows no real learning from the Met … After 31 years, serious mistakes are still being made.”
A leak of the draft prepared by Met assistant commissioner Louisa Rolfe, quoted by the Guardian newspaper, says that the Lawrence family has been let down and suggests they cannot have trust in “any of the previous investigations and, in particular, in the 2020 decision that all viable lines of inquiry had been exhausted”.
The document adds the review will concentrate on “the effectiveness and reasonableness of the closure strategy, family liaison strategy and communications strategy” and accepts that “despite 31 years of apologies, learning and progress, serious mistakes are still being made”.
Among those expected to take part in the review is former Met detective chief inspector Clive Driscoll, who was in charge of the investigation that gained the 2012 convictions against Dobson and Norris. He told the Guardian: “In 2014 I felt there were opportunities to catch more of the killers. It may be that there are still opportunities.”
The three other men named as suspect’s are Luke Knight and the brothers Neil and Jamie Acourt. All have denied wrongdoing.
