Baroness Doreen Lawrence has described her profound disbelief at allegations that undercover police officers were instructed to gather information to "smear" and "destroy" her family following the racist murder of her son Stephen.
Shocking Testimony at Public Inquiry
The mother of Stephen Lawrence delivered emotional testimony to the public inquiry into undercover policing on Thursday, stating she had only ever wanted her family to be treated equally by police investigators. Her son Stephen was murdered by a racist gang of five or six attackers in south-east London in April 1993, with only two of the perpetrators ever being brought to justice.
The initial investigation into Stephen's death was marred by incompetence and allegations of corruption. In 2014, whistle-blower and former undercover officer Peter Francis claimed he had been specifically tasked with collecting information to discredit the Lawrence family - allegations the Metropolitan Police continues to deny.
Resources Wasted on Smear Campaign
Lady Lawrence told the hearing: "If they were able to put that amount of attention and resources into discrediting us as a family, if they'd put that amount of attention into seeking and to finding Stephen's murderers, we would not be sitting here today."
She emphasised that throughout the investigation into her son's murder, she never sought special treatment. "All I wanted was to be treated the same. It is your job to investigate Stephen's murder and that's all I wanted. To have spent their time looking to smear and to find things to destroy us as a family, it's hard to believe that people go to that extreme."
Systemic Racism in Police Response
Lady Lawrence revealed that police automatically assumed her family were criminals because they were black. "Police officers were saying that they'd never met anybody like us before. And the assumption is that my son must have been a criminal, and that was what they kept bringing up. Because we were supposed to be so different."
She described this assumption as "quite disturbing", adding: "Automatically you are put into a category that as blacks you are criminals, and there is nothing about me, my background, anything could ever give you that impression."
The family felt police showed little interest in properly investigating Stephen's murder, despite receiving valuable information from both the Lawrences and local community members. Lady Lawrence stated bluntly: "If Stephen had been white they would have looked at it completely differently."
Members of the public repeatedly provided names of suspects to the family, who passed them to police, yet no effective action was taken. "The police did not want to know. People in authority did not want to know. Just another black boy has been murdered, so what? We were ignored. Constantly ignored," she told the inquiry.
Lady Lawrence concluded: "We had done everything that we could do to support the police, but in the end they did nothing to support us."
Intelligence Reports and Campaign Surveillance
The inquiry was shown multiple intelligence reports referencing the family's justice campaign. Some documents suggested political groups were attempting to influence the campaign, while others related to protest plans during the 1998 Macpherson Inquiry into Stephen's death.
Public outrage over the surveillance allegations against the Lawrence family became a key catalyst for the massive Undercover Policing Inquiry, which officially began in 2015. Whistle-blower Peter Francis claimed his superiors held racist views, with one officer known as HN86 allegedly referring to black justice campaigners as "monkeys" - an accusation the officer denies.
Mr Francis has further asserted: "The Special Branch attitude towards the Lawrence family was 100% racist. They were viewed as unable to think for themselves or come up with and run their campaign themselves."
The Undercover Policing Inquiry is examining activities of officers from the secretive Metropolitan Police units, including the Special Demonstration Squad and the National Public Order Intelligence Unit. Among the serious allegations being investigated are that undercover officers:
- Deceived women into sexual relationships, sometimes resulting in children
- Used identities of deceased children without family permission
- Spied on family justice campaigns
The current phase of the inquiry focuses on the Special Demonstration Squad's operations between 1993 and 2007, with hearings having commenced in October. This timeline directly overlaps with the Lawrence family's fight for justice following Stephen's murder.
