London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Monday, Nov 17, 2025

Nobody holds 'brutal' police to account - Doreen Lawrence

Nobody holds 'brutal' police to account - Doreen Lawrence

The Metropolitan Police has failed to change in the 30 years since the murder of her teenage son, Baroness Doreen Lawrence has told BBC News.

Weeks after a landmark report found evidence of continuing systemic racism, Baroness Lawrence said officers can be "as brutal as they want" without being held to account.

She told the BBC the findings of the Casey Review did not surprise her.

Black people are never seen as "people that should have justice", she added.

It is now 30 years since the murder of Stephen, and Baroness Lawrence sat down with me ahead of a memorial service for her son. She told me she had spoken to the Met's Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley and told him promises of change must be judged against the experience of the public.

Eighteen-year-old Stephen was killed in 1993 in an unprovoked racist attack by a gang at a bus stop in Eltham in south-east London. Two of his five suspected killers were jailed for murder nearly 20 years later.

Stephen Lawrence


The 1999 Macpherson Report into the failed investigation into Stephen's death found there had been "institutional racism" in the Metropolitan Police. The watershed report made 70 recommendations, many aimed at improving police attitudes to racism.

Twenty-four years on, Baroness Louise Casey's recent report once again found the force to be an institutionally racist organisation - as well as homophobic and misogynistic.

"I don't know how many more inquiries and how many reviews you need to have to say the same thing - and still no changes, and still denials," Baroness Lawrence says.

"Officers [are] able to be as brutal as they want, and nobody holds them to account."

Baroness Lawrence told me she did not believe she would ever see full justice for her son's murder. She says that without the family's constant pressure, even those two convictions in 2012 would not have happened.

"Within the black community, how we're treated, how crime's investigated, we're never seen as a group of people that should have justice," she says. "So everything that we've had, we've had to fight for - and continue to fight."

I have covered the Lawrence story since the 1990s and have watched and interviewed Doreen many times as she campaigned for justice for her son. The private person we will never know, but her public persona has changed considerably. Back then, she treated her encounters with the media as a necessary evil, her only means of keeping her family's cruel denial of justice in the public eye.

Day after day, during the Macpherson Inquiry hearings into the botched murder investigation, I would watch from the media pen as Doreen braced herself to run the gauntlet of the cameras waiting to catch her as she arrived. Her face was taut with the strain of daily exposure, and of having to relive, through the evidence, the tragedy that had befallen her - all in the full glare of publicity.

A private, guarded person, Doreen Lawrence was the most reluctant of figureheads, a bereaved mother who wore her grief heavily like armour, and who endured the spotlight only in the fervent hope of seeing her son's killers convicted - and the police exposed for their failings.

Thirty years later, Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon has lost none of her steel. But she is a more relaxed person, more comfortable in her public role, and with an easy warmth. There is no rest for her though, and perhaps there never will be.

The bus stop in Eltham, London, where Stephen Lawrence was attacked


Despite the 2012 convictions of David Norris and Gary Dobson, there are other suspects who are still free.

Then, there has been the fallout - Baroness Lawrence discovered that police officers were spying on her and her family - and right now, she is involved in a legal case against the publisher of the Daily Mail, alleging it was illicitly gathering information about her.

She says that as long as the police continue to deny they did anything wrong, there will be no change. "The reality is that they didn't do everything that they could - they allowed the perpetrators to go free."

Sir Mark Rowley, the Commissioner of the Met, has admitted that there are severe shortcomings, but that the Met is not the same force that it was 20 or 25 years ago.

"I think the public should be the judge of that and not him," Baroness Lawrence says.

She adds that she has heard "a lot of rhetoric" from the commissioner, "but unless we see the changes ourselves, we're never going to believe that".

When she met Sir Mark after the publication of the Casey report, she told him the public needed to see improvements for themselves.

"But over the past - in Stephen's case - 30 years, nothing much has changed," she says.

Will she ever stop campaigning? "You need to use your voice," she replies. But the burden of it remains. "I don't want to be constantly in the public eye… at the end of the day, I just want to be, just me and my family."

Stephen Lawrence memorial stone


She feels that 30 years ago, society was not sufficiently shocked by Stephen's murder, and that although the Black Lives Matter movement has since "opened people's eyes up a little bit more", it has not led to permanent change.

She says she tries not to feel bitter, because that would affect her personally, but admits she feels "disappointed, upset, and at times I can be quite angry".

In 2018, Stephen's father, Neville Lawrence, said he had forgiven their son's killers as a way of helping him cope.

Baroness Lawrence feels that for her to do so, they would first need to admit to their crime. "But they've never owned up, and in their eyes, they've done nothing wrong."

Mr Lawrence has since said that their son's killers should confess before being considered for parole.

Baroness Lawrence continues to campaign for justice and racial equality and has set up the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation to help young people achieve their ambitions.

In 2018, then-Prime Minister Theresa May announced a national day of commemoration would take place on 22 April - the day of Stephen's murder - every year.

The 30th anniversary will be marked by a church service at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, and there will be events involving local schools, the Prince's Trust and the police cadets.

Privately, Baroness Lawrence will remember her son by laying flowers at the bus stop where he lost his life, as she does every year.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Popeyes UK Eyes Century Mark as Fried-Chicken Chain Accelerates Roll-out
Two-thirds of UK nurses report working while unwell amid staffing crisis
Britain to Reform Human-Rights Laws in Sweeping Asylum Policy Overhaul
Nearly Half of Job Losses Under Labour Government Affect UK Youth
UK Chancellor Reeves Eyes High-Value Home Levy in Budget to Raise Tens of Billions
UK Urges Poland to Choose Swedish Submarines in Multi-Billion € Defence Bid
US Border Czar Tom Homan Declares UK No Longer a ‘Friend’ Amid Intelligence Rift
UK Announces Reversal of Income Tax Hike Plans Ahead of Budget
Starmer Faces Mounting Turmoil as Leaked Briefings Ignite Leadership Plot Rumours
UK Commentator Sami Hamdi Returns Home After US Visa Revocation and Detention
UK Eyes Denmark-Style Asylum Rules in Major Migration Shift
UK Signals Intelligence Freeze Amid US Maritime Drug-Strike Campaign
TikTok Awards UK & Ireland 2025 Celebrates Top Creators Including Max Klymenko as Creator of the Year
UK Growth Nearly Stalls at 0.1% in Q3 as Cyberattack Halts Car Production
Apple Denied Permission to Appeal UK App Store Ruling, Faces Over £1bn Liability
UK Chooses Wylfa for First Small Modular Reactors, Drawing Sharp U.S. Objection
Starmer Faces Growing Labour Backlash as Briefing Sparks Authority Crisis
Reform UK Withdraws from BBC Documentary Amid Legal Storm Over Trump Speech Edit
UK Prime Minister Attempts to Reassert Authority Amid Internal Labour Leadership Drama
UK Upholds Firm Rules on Stablecoins to Shield Financial System
Brussels Divided as UK-EU Reset Stalls Over Budget Access
Prince Harry’s Remembrance Day Essay Expresses Strong Regret at Leaving Britain
UK Unemployment Hits 5% as Wage Growth Slows, Paving Way for Bank of England Rate Cut
Starmer Warns of Resurgent Racism in UK Politics as He Vows Child-Poverty Reforms
UK Grocery Inflation Slows to 4.7% as Supermarkets Launch Pre-Christmas Promotions
UK Government Backs the BBC amid Editing Scandal and Trump Threat of Legal Action
UK Assessment Mis-Estimated Fallout From Palestine Action Ban, Records Reveal
UK Halts Intelligence Sharing with US Amid Lethal Boat-Strike Concerns
King Charles III Leads Britain in Remembrance Sunday Tribute to War Dead
UK Retail Sales Growth Slows as Households Hold Back Ahead of Black Friday and Budget
Shell Pulls Out of Two UK Floating Wind Projects Amid Renewables Retreat
Viagogo Hit With £15 Million Tax Bill After HMRC Transfer-Pricing Inquiry
Jaguar Land Rover Cyberattack Pinches UK GDP, Bank of England Says
UK and Germany Sound Alarm on Russian-Satellite Threat to Critical Infrastructure
Former Prince Andrew Faces U.S. Congressional Request for Testimony Amid Brexit of Royal Title
BBC Director-General Tim Davie and News CEO Deborah Turness Resign Amid Editing Controversy
Tom Cruise Arrives by Helicopter at UK Scientology Fundraiser Amid Local Protests
Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson Face Fresh UK Probes Amid Royal Fallout
Mothers Link Teen Suicides to AI Chatbots in Growing Legal Battle
UK Government to Mirror Denmark’s Tough Immigration Framework in Major Policy Shift
UK Government Turns to Denmark-Style Immigration Reforms to Overhaul Border Rules
UK Chancellor Warned Against Cutting Insulation Funding as Budget Looms
UK Tenant Complaints Hit Record Levels as Rental Sector Faces Mounting Pressure
Apple to Pay Google About One Billion Dollars Annually for Gemini AI to Power Next-Generation Siri
UK Signals Major Shift as Nuclear Arms Race Looms
BBC’s « Celebrity Traitors UK » Finale Breaks Records with 11.1 Million Viewers
UK Spy Case Collapse Highlights Implications for UK-Taiwan Strategic Alignment
On the Road to the Oscars? Meghan Markle to Star in a New Film
A Vote Worth a Trillion Dollars: Elon Musk’s Defining Day
AI Researchers Claim Human-Level General Intelligence Is Already Here
×