Justice Has Leaked Away

It was hard not to be struck by Neville Lawrence’s sickened weariness last night, as he justified for the thousandth time his family and pointed to the obvious denial of justice. Here in the Newsnight studio he faced yet again the face of police intransigence claiming that the Lawrence family were spied upon at the height of the criminal case to prevent “serious public disorder”.

The assumption from the Met that appears unbreakable is that a black London family cannot be entirely normal, hard-working, decent and honest. There is an ever present suspicion they must be in some way linked to criminality or extremism.

For those familiar with the detail of the Macpherson Inquiry published in 1998, there was always some missing gaps which were only likely to explained by corruption. Although the actions of the Special Demonstration Squad were deemed “out of control” they still liaised with the top of the shop at the Met even with a member of the Macpherson Inquiry Panel. The case was handled with such willful ineptitude, it would be practically impossible to explain it otherwise. The examples in the report are legion.

When the five had been named as killers of Stephen Lawrence by multiple witnesses, the Met had easily enough 'reasonable suspicion' to make arrests but did not. Instead, they belatedly set up an incompetent surveillance operation. There was no radio contact with other units and no back up. The police simply photographed the suspects disposing of plastic bags full of evidence. It seemed to me, by having a flawed surveillance operation, they wanted to allow themselves plausible deniability that they had acted while still ensuring no prosecution would be successful.

The Home Secretary may find the conclusions of Mark Ellison QC’s report, “profoundly shocking” but establishing another Inquiry is far from being heralded as the first one was, set up by Jack Straw after 97 election. Justice has leaked away. Men of dishonour have left the force, or the country and naturally some have died. Much of the documentation was shredded ten years ago.

By the conclusion of the next Inquiry there will be no prosecutions. The Lawrence family know that. And also that secrets will still remain buried. As Neville himself said, “while all this has been happening, our family has been destroyed.”