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Oct 2, 2017 · At least 58 people were killed and more than 515 injured in Sunday's mass murder at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival. The shooting began as country music star Jason Aldean was playing.
Jun 30, 2023 · Investigating the murder of Stephen Lawrence is a journey into the past and the present. Stephen was murdered 30 years ago in a racist attack by a gang of young white men.
Jun 26, 2023 · Stephen Lawrence's murder and the failed investigation sparked a landmark public inquiry. In his witness statement, he said he had visited the home of Neil and Jamie Acourt about an hour after...
Aug 1, 2024 · Stephen Lawrence's body will be returned to the UK from Jamaica 31 years after his racist murder, his mother Doreen Lawrence said. The Lawrence family laid the 18-year-old to rest overseas...
- THE STEPHEN LAWRENCE INDEPENDENT REVIEW
- 39 1. Our terms of reference
- 2. Key findings of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry
- The senior oficers:
- j) DS Davidson:
- Term of reference
- Findings
- Findings
- The Metropolitan Police Service Review of 31 May 2012
- Comment
- Comment
- Findings
- Comment
- Comment
- Finding
- Findings regarding Peter Francis’ claims
- 4.3 Who ordered the undercover policing and why?
- Findings
- Finding
- Findings
- Postscript on undercover policing
- The prosecution of Duwayne Brooks in 1993
- Finding
- Finding
- Findings
Possible corruption and the role of undercover policing in the Stephen Lawrence case
Is there evidence providing reasonable grounds for suspecting that any oficer associated with the initial investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence acted corruptly? Are there any further lines of investigation connected to the issue of possible corrupt activity by any oficer associated with the initial investigation of the murder of Stephen L...
The questions posed by our terms of reference must be considered in the context of the following key findings of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry: The initial investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence was seriously flawed and deserving of severe criticism. The underlying causes of the failure were more troublesome and potentially more sinister. T...
● Detective Inspector Benjamin Bullock, Detective Superintendent Ian Crampton, Detective Superintendent Brian Weeden and Detective Chief Superintendent William Ilsley were all heavily criticised for the following: — ● The flawed decision (if there ever had been a decision) not to carry out arrests of the named suspects and searches of their address...
The Inquiry was clearly most troubled about the possible motives behind the investigative deficiencies of DS Davidson. The senior oficers had left DS Davidson in control of many of the ‘outside enquiries’ made by the investigation. The Inquiry found his deficiencies to include: ● highly unsatisfactory handling of “James Grant”, including a failure ...
3. Was the Macpherson Inquiry provided with all relevant material connected to the issue of possible corrupt activity by any oficer associated with the initial investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence? If not, what impact might that have had on the Inquiry?
● ● Had the MPS informed the Chairman of the Inquiry about the combination of the detail of Neil Putnam’s debriefing regarding John Davidson to CIB3 in July 1998 and the intelligence picture otherwise suggesting to the MPS that Mr Davidson was corrupt, in our view the Chairman was likely to have wanted to consider the following options: — ● identif...
● ● Assuming that Neil Putnam is available and willing to give evidence, the answer must be yes as regards John Davidson. Other than Mr Putnam’s potential evidence, the material available which suggests that Mr Davidson may have been corrupt in the Stephen Lawrence investigation remains ‘intelligence’ and not ‘evidence’. In regard to other oficers ...
In our view this Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) Review contained errors and inaccurate phrasing. However, we accept that the inability of MPS system searches to reveal relevant material, and the short timescales allowed by the MPS for the review, may have been significant contributing factors in these errors. The following matters within the rev...
● ● We acknowledge that for decades the SDS provided effective warning to enable the parts of the MPS dealing with the policing of public disorder to plan and allocate appropriate resources to meet the risks. Intelligence provided by the SDS thereby enabled a tighter management of the MPS resources. Valuable intelligence was also provided to the Se...
● ● Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) undercover deployment at the time of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry included deployment into activist groups that sought to influence the Lawrence family campaign. Information reported back to the SDS as a result of that deployment included personal details about Mr and Mrs Lawrence. It included discussion of the...
● We find the opening of such a channel of communication at that time to have been ‘wrong-headed’ and inappropriate. ● The reality was that N81 was, at the time, an MPS spy in the Lawrence family camp during the course of judicial proceedings in which the family was the primary party in opposition to the MPS. ● ● ● ● ● The mere presence of an under...
● There is no surviving record that we have seen that supports Mr Francis’ claim that he, or any other oficer, was tasked to report back intelligence that might be used to ‘smear’ or undermine the Lawrence family. ● However, the weight of the material that we have considered makes it clear that the majority of the records of SDS work in the era hav...
●● There is no surviving record that we have seen that supports Peter Francis’ publicly reported assertion that Special Branch asked the murder investigation to ascertain and report back the names of individuals and groups present in the Lawrence family home in the weeks after the murder. No record of any such request or action to that effect has b...
●● Once again, the potential for such activity as Mr Francis alleges to have occurred exists, but there is no evidence other than Mr Francis’ to show it actually happened.
● ● ● ● Our Review does not permit us to test the competing accounts of Peter Francis as against other SDS oficers. We have a number of concerns which arise from the allegations made by Mr Francis. We feel unable to reject his claims simply because other SDS oficers deny them. We do not feel able to make any definitive findings concerning Mr Franci...
Over the years, it appears to us that there would have been general knowledge that there was an undercover capability that had a broad public order remit both at the top of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and also at the Home Ofice in the early decades of Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) operation. The public order remit was clearly generall...
● ● ● Yes, information regarding undercover policing was withheld from the Public Inquiry. In our assessment both the details of relevant Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) undercover oficer deployment into groups privy to tactical aspects of the Lawrence family campaign and the fact that a channel of communication had been opened between an underco...
●● We believe that revelation to the Public Inquiry of what is now apparent in terms of the nature of the undercover policing around the time of the Inquiry, and the use that was made of it, would have greatly troubled the Chairman of the Inquiry and his advisers as it troubles us, the Commissioner at the time and the Deputy Commissioner at the tim...
● ● ● ● ● ● We believe that if the MPS had sought the guidance of the Chairman of the Inquiry on the propriety of continuing any undercover deployments that touched on the Lawrence family campaign during the period of the Inquiry, as we believe it should have, the Chairman would have directed that such deployments should be terminated. In our opini...
Although our terms of reference are limited to the role of undercover policing in the context of the Lawrence case, we feel bound to indicate that from the material that we have seen, it would be wrong to assume that undercover policing by the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) (which involved deployment into a wide range of groups that presented a ...
We note that it was clearly part of a Special Demonstration Squad (SDS) oficer’s remit to seek to identify people who had participated in protests and demonstrations to the relevant uniform branch. We believe it would be done on the basis of submitting a sanitised report suggesting, for example, “A secret and reliable source has suggested ‘X’ was p...
●● We have not seen anything to show that the proposal to use the liaison relationship with Mr Brooks as a means of gathering intelligence was implemented. The fact that it was even being contemplated demonstrates how ex-Special Branch oficers appear to have been less than hesitant to develop intelligence without considering the potential damage of...
●● We have considered the circumstances in which a meeting with Mr Brooks and his solicitor came to be covertly recorded in May 2000 with care. On balance, we do not believe that such a tactic was necessary or justified in the circumstances. All of the suggested concerns cited in the application for authority could have been met by openly recording...
● ● ● Researching individuals to ascertain if they, or others, might pose a public order threat to hearings of this type was, in our assessment, justified. There had been considerable public order issues during the London hearings and on other occasions when frustrations around police inadequacy in the investigation of racist crime had led to publi...
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Mar 6, 2014 · 22 April 1993 - Stephen Lawrence murdered. The 18-year-old is stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack by a gang of white youths as he waits at a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London, with his...
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Jul 9, 2023 · On 22 April 1993, Stephen Lawrence, an 18-year-old Black man, was stabbed to death at a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London by a group of White youths in an unprovoked, racist attack. Stephen’s friend, Duwayne Brooks, was with him at the time and witnessed the attack.
