The murder of Stephen Lawrence & institutional racism - an overview
Bullshit Detector | 05.01.2012 13:18 | Analysis | Anti-racism | History
The deeper exploration of the facts surrounding the murder of Stephen Lawrence & the expose of institutional racism in the UK, most particularly the revelation that whilst the original prosecuting officers were knee deep in association with criminal activity with a father of one of the accused (David Norris), one can also question how at the time of the non-investigation into Stephen Lawrence's murder, a public trial into the death of young David Norris' uncle also called David Norris who was a police informant which was happening at the same time may have threatened to expose criminal cartels operating in 3 specialist police squads operating in south-east - one of which included association with gangster Kenneth Noye (who is/was also a freemason).
Here in the UK, 18 years since the murder of black teenager Steven Lawrence, Gary Dobson and David Norris have been sentenced to a total of 29 years for this now notorious murder and race hate crime in 1993. Judge Lord Justice Treacy handed Gary Dobson, 36, a minimum 15 years and 2 months and David Norris, 35, a minimum 14 years and 3 months at the Old Bailey on Tuesday 3rd Jan 2012.
Despite the conviction of 2 of the group now due to new evidence and the overhaul of the double jeopardy law, the actual assailants in the murder remain at large.
See also: "The nine other suspects in Stephen Lawrence’s murder"
Ref:
http://www.anorak.co.uk/307374/news/the-nine-other-suspects-in-stephen-lawrences-murder.html/
Detectives say a gang of at least five young men were involved in the unprovoked attack on Stephen at an Eltham, south London, bus stop. Neil Acourt, his brother Jamie, David Norris, Gary Dobson and Luke Knight – were the the prime suspects in the Lawrence case. A bungled police investigation at the time of the murder meant there was a critical 2-week delay in following crucial leads in the investigation and gathering evidence. Despite numerous leads including witness statements and a letter left in a phonebox written anonymously naming the 5 suspects, police only started survelliancing the addresses of the 5 accused 4 days after the murder, witnessing men carrying black bin bags out of the houses. Inexplicably, the police never asked them what was inside. They just watched. Subsequent deliberate sabotage of evidence which was thereafter recovered including clothing with bloodstains (such as by Met detective Paul Steed, who tampered with key times and dates on an evidence log) officially excused as incompetence in the gathering of evidence thereafter allowed those guilty of
this evil crime to roam free for over 18 years. Public pressure to reinvestigate which embarrassed the Metropolitan Police to do so was only brought to bear after Nelson Mandela made a public visit to meet Stephen Lawrence's parents in May 1993. The five prime suspects were arrested the day after Mandela's visit. However, the Criminal Prosecution Service then decided not to prosecute.
Three were acquitted of murder after a private prosecution brought by the Lawrence family collapsed at the Old Bailey in 1996. Lurking in the murky background to this abject failure of justice has been the dark shadow of serious allegations of collusion between Met officers and the father of David Norris - Clifford Norris, a notorious figure in the criminal underworld, with overlap at the time with the murder inquiry of Clifford Norris' cousin David Norris (killed in 1991) who was a police informant. The senior officers responsible for the catalogue of errors in the first four days of the Stephen Lawrence murder in April 1993 - detective superintendent Ian Crampton and detective chief superintendent Bill Ilsley - were also the detectives in charge of the highly sensitive murder trial of four Irish Protestant suspects charged with the contract killing of the Yard's top informant (Ref: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/four-freed-as-drugs-plot-trial-collapses-judge-says-evidence-of-prosecution-witnesses-could-not-be-relied-upon-2325014.html ). This murder trial began six days before the killing of Stephen Lawrence, in which the officers had to circumnavigate around police informant
confidentiality, the use of supergrasses and the link between British intelligence and loyalist paramilitaries in the dirty war in Northern Ireland
(read more here: http://gangsinlondon.blogspot.com/2012/01/stephen-lawrence-eltham-krays-cover-up.html ).
Most directly, criminal collusion was alleged but never verified between Clifford and Alex Norris and detective sergeant Dave Coles, in an undercover surveillance operation by UK customs. In relation to this and more directly, the bribing of a prosecution witness (Stacey Benefield), incredibly, the discredited Independent Police Complaints Commission who investigated claims that the first police probe into the murder of black 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence was hindered by a corrupt officer, concluded in their report into Stephen Lawrence murder investigation in 2007 that the claims were unfounded. [Ref: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/15_10_07_lawrence.pdf ]. This correlates with the Met Police's internal review in the Autumn of 1993 detective
chief superintendent John Barker who concluded in his report that the Lawrence murder inquiry had "progressed satisfactorily" with "all lines of inquiry being correctly pursued" (following complaint from the Lawrence family, the Police Complaints Authority investigation in 1997 into the Barker Review found 28 shortcomings in the initial investigation that had been missed or suppressed by Barker).
An official inquiry into the murder headed by retired High Court judge Sir William Macpherson found that the Met was 'institutionally racist'. The report criticised five of the original investigating officers for refusing to accept that it was a racist attack, but despite McPherson's findings no officer was ever punished for this rank incompetence. Furthermore, deaths of black people in custody have continued, a disproportionate number of young black men get stopped and searched in London and a culture of impunity within the police persists exemplified by the fact that to date the only convictions of British police for a police-related death, or death in custody was in 1969 (David Oluwale) whilst at the same time, the long list of people (many black people) who have died in the custody of police and prison officers continues to grow (as well as those who are killed in secure psychiatric hospitals). It includes the families of Joy
Gardner, Roger Sylvester, Leon Patterson, Rocky Bennett, Alton Manning, Christopher Alder, Brian Douglas, Joy Gardner, Aseta Simms, Ricky Bishop, Paul Jemmott, Harry Stanley, Glenn Howard, Mikey Powell, Jason McPherson, Lloyd Butler, Azelle Rodney, Sean Rigg, Habib Ullah, Olaseni Lewis, David Emmanuel (aka Smiley Culture), Kingsley Burrell, Demetre Fraser and Mark Duggan to name but a few. The murder of Mark Duggan, whose shooting by police and lack of response by the police to the family after a vigil waited outside a police station in Tottenham all day on Saturday 7th August 2011 escalated into a riot, sparking London's riots.
Life after the Macpherson report
Did anything change for black Britons after Sir William Macpherson's inquiry into the investigation of Stephen Lawrence's murder found that the Met Police was `institutionally racist'? Poppy Brady's report published in The Voice.
Ref: http://voice-online.co.uk/article/life-after-macpherson-report
More Info: UNITED FAMILIES & FRIENDS CAMPAIGN (UFFC)
Ref: http://www.seanriggjusticeandchange.com/uffc%202011%20Press%20Statement-1.htm
The Death of Christopher Alder:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Christopher_Alder
4wardforever campaign: http://4wardeveruk.org/about-newsvine/history/
Injustice - a film about the struggles for justice by the families of people that have died in police custody: http://www.injusticefilm.co.uk/
Despite the conviction of 2 of the group now due to new evidence and the overhaul of the double jeopardy law, the actual assailants in the murder remain at large.
See also: "The nine other suspects in Stephen Lawrence’s murder"
Ref:
http://www.anorak.co.uk/307374/news/the-nine-other-suspects-in-stephen-lawrences-murder.html/ Detectives say a gang of at least five young men were involved in the unprovoked attack on Stephen at an Eltham, south London, bus stop. Neil Acourt, his brother Jamie, David Norris, Gary Dobson and Luke Knight – were the the prime suspects in the Lawrence case. A bungled police investigation at the time of the murder meant there was a critical 2-week delay in following crucial leads in the investigation and gathering evidence. Despite numerous leads including witness statements and a letter left in a phonebox written anonymously naming the 5 suspects, police only started survelliancing the addresses of the 5 accused 4 days after the murder, witnessing men carrying black bin bags out of the houses. Inexplicably, the police never asked them what was inside. They just watched. Subsequent deliberate sabotage of evidence which was thereafter recovered including clothing with bloodstains (such as by Met detective Paul Steed, who tampered with key times and dates on an evidence log) officially excused as incompetence in the gathering of evidence thereafter allowed those guilty of
this evil crime to roam free for over 18 years. Public pressure to reinvestigate which embarrassed the Metropolitan Police to do so was only brought to bear after Nelson Mandela made a public visit to meet Stephen Lawrence's parents in May 1993. The five prime suspects were arrested the day after Mandela's visit. However, the Criminal Prosecution Service then decided not to prosecute.
Three were acquitted of murder after a private prosecution brought by the Lawrence family collapsed at the Old Bailey in 1996. Lurking in the murky background to this abject failure of justice has been the dark shadow of serious allegations of collusion between Met officers and the father of David Norris - Clifford Norris, a notorious figure in the criminal underworld, with overlap at the time with the murder inquiry of Clifford Norris' cousin David Norris (killed in 1991) who was a police informant. The senior officers responsible for the catalogue of errors in the first four days of the Stephen Lawrence murder in April 1993 - detective superintendent Ian Crampton and detective chief superintendent Bill Ilsley - were also the detectives in charge of the highly sensitive murder trial of four Irish Protestant suspects charged with the contract killing of the Yard's top informant (Ref:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/four-freed-as-drugs-plot-trial-collapses-judge-says-evidence-of-prosecution-witnesses-could-not-be-relied-upon-2325014.html ). This murder trial began six days before the killing of Stephen Lawrence, in which the officers had to circumnavigate around police informant confidentiality, the use of supergrasses and the link between British intelligence and loyalist paramilitaries in the dirty war in Northern Ireland
(read more here:
http://gangsinlondon.blogspot.com/2012/01/stephen-lawrence-eltham-krays-cover-up.html ). Most directly, criminal collusion was alleged but never verified between Clifford and Alex Norris and detective sergeant Dave Coles, in an undercover surveillance operation by UK customs. In relation to this and more directly, the bribing of a prosecution witness (Stacey Benefield), incredibly, the discredited Independent Police Complaints Commission who investigated claims that the first police probe into the murder of black 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence was hindered by a corrupt officer, concluded in their report into Stephen Lawrence murder investigation in 2007 that the claims were unfounded. [Ref:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/15_10_07_lawrence.pdf ]. This correlates with the Met Police's internal review in the Autumn of 1993 detective chief superintendent John Barker who concluded in his report that the Lawrence murder inquiry had "progressed satisfactorily" with "all lines of inquiry being correctly pursued" (following complaint from the Lawrence family, the Police Complaints Authority investigation in 1997 into the Barker Review found 28 shortcomings in the initial investigation that had been missed or suppressed by Barker).
An official inquiry into the murder headed by retired High Court judge Sir William Macpherson found that the Met was 'institutionally racist'. The report criticised five of the original investigating officers for refusing to accept that it was a racist attack, but despite McPherson's findings no officer was ever punished for this rank incompetence. Furthermore, deaths of black people in custody have continued, a disproportionate number of young black men get stopped and searched in London and a culture of impunity within the police persists exemplified by the fact that to date the only convictions of British police for a police-related death, or death in custody was in 1969 (David Oluwale) whilst at the same time, the long list of people (many black people) who have died in the custody of police and prison officers continues to grow (as well as those who are killed in secure psychiatric hospitals). It includes the families of Joy
Gardner, Roger Sylvester, Leon Patterson, Rocky Bennett, Alton Manning, Christopher Alder, Brian Douglas, Joy Gardner, Aseta Simms, Ricky Bishop, Paul Jemmott, Harry Stanley, Glenn Howard, Mikey Powell, Jason McPherson, Lloyd Butler, Azelle Rodney, Sean Rigg, Habib Ullah, Olaseni Lewis, David Emmanuel (aka Smiley Culture), Kingsley Burrell, Demetre Fraser and Mark Duggan to name but a few. The murder of Mark Duggan, whose shooting by police and lack of response by the police to the family after a vigil waited outside a police station in Tottenham all day on Saturday 7th August 2011 escalated into a riot, sparking London's riots.
Life after the Macpherson report
Did anything change for black Britons after Sir William Macpherson's inquiry into the investigation of Stephen Lawrence's murder found that the Met Police was `institutionally racist'? Poppy Brady's report published in The Voice.
Ref:
http://voice-online.co.uk/article/life-after-macpherson-report More Info: UNITED FAMILIES & FRIENDS CAMPAIGN (UFFC)
Ref:
http://www.seanriggjusticeandchange.com/uffc%202011%20Press%20Statement-1.htm The Death of Christopher Alder:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Christopher_Alder 4wardforever campaign:
http://4wardeveruk.org/about-newsvine/history/ Injustice - a film about the struggles for justice by the families of people that have died in police custody:
http://www.injusticefilm.co.uk/
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