New forensic examinations are taking place in the hope of finding a way to bring more of the killers of Stephen Lawrence to justice, the Met Commissioner said today.
Sir Mark Rowley said that the development of new technology meant that it might be possible to uncover fresh leads in the case and that he would always “keep hope” that further action could be taken over Stephen’s racist murder.
He added that a newly appointed assistant commissioner, Matt Ward, was also using a “fresh pair of eyes” over the evidence in a further effort to find potential leads and the investigation into Stephen’s killing could be reopened if reasons to do so emerged.
He cautioned, however, that “egregious” failures in the early days of the investigation still presented a major hurdle that might prove impossible to overcome.
He also said that the Crown Prosecution Service is in the “advance stages” of deciding whether officers responsible for the initial botched investigation should face criminal charges for misconduct in public office.
Describing Stephen’s murder as a “ghastly” crime, Sir Mark told City Hall’s police and crime committee, that with “any closed case we are always open to new opportunities and new ways into it”.
He added: “At the moment there’s a piece of work going on reviewing forensic opportunities because technology and thinking moves on, opportunities move on, looking at all the keys of it, looking at existing technology and is there anything in there.
That may generate a no in which case we stay as we are, that may generate a yes in which case we would consider what sort of investigation that might generate.”
But he warned that although officers had since “moved heaven and earth” to bring more of Stephen’s killers to justice in addition to the convictions of Gary Dobson and David Norris in 2012, the investigation had been undermined by failings at the start.
“The sad truth is that if you do such a bad job of an investigation in its first weeks and months you lose evidence, you miss forensic opportunities, you miss witness opportunities and witness memories degrade.
“There’s been an immense amount of effort in the last 20 years but I don’t want to pretend that you can always catch up the ground you so badly lost in the early days. That’s what makes it so egregious and makes the errors so egregious that they’re not repairable always. I always keep hope that we find new opportunities but I’m not going to make promises I can’t honour.”
Today’s comments by Sir Mark came during an appearance before City Hall’s police and crime committee and follow the recent disclosure that Matthew White, who died in 2021, had been a twice arrested suspect in the killing, which a judge has suggested involved at least three or four others in addition to the two men jailed for the murder.
