London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 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
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
×