RedHanded - Episode 46 - Stephen Lawrence

Episode Date: May 16, 2018

The brutal, racially motivated murder of 18 year old Stephen Lawrence on the streets of South East London was a watershed moment in British history. It revealed the shocking institutional racism that lay at the heart of the London Metropolitan Police. In this week’s episode Hannah and Suruthi trace this difficult, but desperately important, story from the climate of race relations before Stephen’s murder, how this fed into a corrupt police investigation - and ask why 25 years later, justice has still not been done.  Vote for us in the Podcast Awards here:  https://www.britishpodcastawards.com/vote/  Audio mastered by Conrad Hughes.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, today is the day that the vote closes

for the British Podcast of the Year Listener's Choice Award. So many people keep asking, you don't have to be British, we just have to be British. You can be from wherever, whoever you are. If you love us, give us a vote today. We're in the top 20, but we are absolutely the underdogs. We need your vote, please. It takes two seconds. Link in the description. Do the right thing. I'm Hannah. I'm Saruti. And this is Red Handed. If you're in Britain, you will definitely know this one. On April the 22nd this year, 2018, just a few weeks ago, it was announced that from now on, the 22nd of April will be known as Stephen Lawrence Day in the UK.

It will be a national day of commemoration for Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered on that day in 1993 in South East London in a swift, brutal and racially motivated attack. On today's show, we're going to take you through why this is such a landmark case, why justice still hasn't been served 25 years later, and how an ordinary family exposed the institutionally racist inner workings of the London Metropolitan Police. And I think this is really important because obviously there's been so much in the news about Stephen Lawrence Day and there's been so much pushback from people who are saying, well, what makes him different to every other boy that's been stabbed? And this is why, this is why it's different. There is an England before Stephen Lawrence,

and there is an England after Stephen Lawrence, and they are markedly different. But is it different enough? Stephen Lawrence lived in Woolwich with his younger brother Stuart, younger sister Georgina, and his parents Doreen and Neville. Doreen and Neville were both Jamaican migrants. Neville was working as a tailor, and as a young man in London, where Doreen's mother, a seamstress, introduced Neville to Doreen and they hit it off. Doreen and Neville

married in 1972 when Doreen was just 19. Stephen was born two years later. Stephen excelled at school, particularly in athletics, so much so that his brother Stuart recalled feeling a little bit frustrated because no matter what he did, it would never be quite as good as Stephen. Stephen was an aspiring architect working really hard at college but my absolute favourite fact about Stephen Lawrence is not his academic prowess. It's that you can see him right at the front in film of a public enemy concert. Before we go into what happened to Stephen, we should do a rundown of what the political climate was like in the UK at that time. After the Second World War, there was a wave

of migration to the UK from the West Indies. Caribbean nationals were invited, and this is the key word, to rebuild the country. This is known as the Windrush Generation, and it is a hot topic at the moment in the increasingly tense Britain of today. This generation of migrants face discrimination in the UK, and this was not short-lived. By the time Stephen was born, in the mid-70s, race relations were not good. There were riots across the country and civil unrest was high and widespread. What really struck us during the research for this week was the slogans of the right then are exactly the same as the slogans of the right today. There's documentary footage of white men shouting in the street,

Britain first, stop immigration, start repatriation. And those words are everywhere in Britain today. And I think one of the key things, like you touched upon, is the fact that after the Second World War, the whole Windrush generation, this was not just exclusive to the West Indies, but the key thing to note here was all of these countries that used to be part of the British Empire, people were being called on from those countries, invited to Britain to start things like our National Health Service to rebuild the country. So very much everything great you see in Britain today was built off the backs of immigrants that were invited here. And one of the biggest tragedies we see today, which is why the Windrush generation is once again in the news,

is the fact that for years, the British government has been sending these people that were invited to this country back to where they came from, deporting them. Anybody who says that race relations in the UK is absolutely fine and we don't have an issue, literally, how can you say that? And it wasn't just white men shouting in the street either. This staggered me. In 1983, Les Curtis, the chairman of the Police Federation, in a televised interview said that a policeman should not be dismissed for using the N-word, claiming that it being a term of abuse was only a matter of opinion. So people in seriously powerful positions had problematic views too, and it only takes a few

of them before we are in serious trouble. Police were exempt from the Race Relations Act in the UK until 1999. That is only 19 years ago. That's our lifetime. That blows my mind. So until 1999, there was no law, literally no law against the police racially discriminating in any way they wanted. They still do it, but now it's illegal. The feeling of community comes from knowing what you are and knowing what you are not. Knowing what you are not creates the other. Your sense of identity is much more whole when you can say not only are we alike, but we are not like them. This is ancient. This is since the dawn of time, this sense of identity. So the incessant rhetoric of scapegoating immigrants is not news. Low income areas usually have higher rates of people with far right leanings.

Rather than blame the system or blame capitalism or blame things that cannot be seen, it's much easier to blame people who are not like you. We see this politics right now. How easy is it to use immigration and migrants, as you said, as the scapegoat or the smokescreen where we use that to explain away all the problems that other people face. And you're completely right. When far right candidates get voted in, all I can think is it's the wrong answer to the right question. The people voting them in have been ignored by the political classes, by the elites for far too long. They have been oppressed by them. But blaming the black or brown neighbours who live across the street from you is the wrong way to go about it. Look at the people who are actually in power. It has been seen time and time again that when the economy suffers, instances of racial

abuse and violence spike. And the Lawrence family's home was in Woolwich, right next door to the BNP strongholds of Eltham, Thamesmead and Welling. And the BNP for our non-UK listeners is, I mean, it doesn't exist anymore, does it? They've pretty much fallen apart. But it was the British National Party. You can guess from that name exactly what they stood for and what they were about. And now I think they've rebranded as Britain First. I think they're different things. Equal, racist, bullshit, wankers. But the BNP don don't even exist anymore which is only a good thing but back then they did elton one of these bnp strongholds was living in fear and between 1991 and 1993 there were three racially motivated murders and many more violent attacks there

was sort of a last of the old guard sense about elton People seem to talk a lot about how no one used to lock their doors and how it's all gone to shit after the immigrants moved in. Really? But if they're talking like pre-Windrush, they're talking about the 1930s. I don't think anyone locked their door in the 1930s. I don't think that's not a marker. That's very true. Basically, what was happening in Eltham at that time was that with all these racially motivated attacks going on, someone or a group of someones were strutting around Eltham, stabbing people of colour and getting away with it. Which brings us to the 22nd of April 1993. Stephen left his house in the morning after saying goodbye to his dad.

He'd gone to school, then met his mate, Duane Brooks. The pair had gone to Stephen's uncle's house after school and then decided to head home. Doreen, Stephen's mum, had been away at a course all week and Stephen was really keen to get home to see his mum. So to get home, Stephen and Duane needed to take two buses, one into Eltham and then the 122. This meant getting off the bus in Eltham and waiting for another bus. So the first bus, there's no problem at all. The pair get off and walk to the next bus stop on Well Hall Road just before the roundabout. The bus that they were waiting for takes longer than expected. Later, Duane would say that if he and Stephen had known that the bus would take so long to come, then they would have just jogged home. But this is the early 90s and there was no way of knowing when the bus was going to come. So they just waited.

I think that's one of the really tragic things about it is they really, really weren't very far away from home. Au pair Alexandra Marie was at the same bus stop and she noted that the two teenagers were in high spirits, chatting and practicing dance moves on the pavement. Duane and Stephen walk up the road to see if the bus is coming and at that moment a group of white teenagers emerge on the other side of the road. According to Duane there were five of them. The leader of the group hurled racist abuse across the road and I really don't think anything positive can come from me a white person repeating it. You probably don't have to try too hard to know

which word I'm talking about. The whole group of white youths ran towards Stephen, one of them pulling something out of his pocket. Duane, a little behind Stephen, shouted at him to run, but Stephen didn't run. To Duane, what had been pulled out of the guy's pocket looked like an iron bar. This was then used to strike a forceful downward blow to Stephen. The rest of the gang attacked Stephen. And this goes on for somewhere between 25 and 50 seconds, which may not seem like a long time. But try not speaking for 50 seconds. Then imagine getting the shit kicked out of you for that amount of time.

It's a long time. The group of five white teens then run off and Stephen stood up, leaving his rucksack on the ground. Alexandra Marie, the au pair who was stood there, remembers breathing rucksack on the ground. Alexandra Marie, the au pair who was stood there, remembers breathing a sigh of relief. She could see him running away. He was running fast. That must have meant that he was all right. But Stephen was far from all right. Duane stayed with him and kept telling him to run. Stephen managed about 200 yards before he collapsed. He kept asking Duane, what's happened to me? Duane saw two people on the other side of the road. He shouted at them that they needed help, but they didn't stop. So Duane, what's happened to me? Duane saw two people on the other side of the road. He shouted at them that they needed help, but they didn't stop.

So Duane ran into the road to try and get cars to stop, but no one did. Duane then found a phone box and rang 999 asking for an ambulance, and he gave the address of the phone box, not knowing it was incorrect. All of these things just take up precious time that Stephen just didn't have. And when the authorities finally did figure out where Duane and Stephen were, they didn't even send an ambulance. They sent the police. Dwayne tried to explain what he had seen. He told the police that Stephen had been hit over the head. But what Dwayne didn't know was the implement he had seen being pulled up over Stephen's head by a member of the white gang was not an iron bar, but a butcher's knife that had gone in through Stephen's head by a member of the white gang was not an iron bar, but a butcher's knife that had

gone in through Stephen's shoulder and punctured his lung. Stephen had also sustained one other deep stab wound, but Stephen was wearing lots of layers and it was dark, so the stab wounds were not visible, let alone obvious. These stab wounds were not discovered until an ambulance showed up at quarter to eleven and paramedics attempted to move Stephen. These stab wounds were not discovered until an ambulance showed up at quarter to eleven and paramedics attempted to move Stephen. These stab wounds were five inches. It was a butcher's knife. They are surely difficult to miss if you're looking. Stephen had been lying in a pool of his own blood

and not one of the police officers on the scene had attempted to locate his injuries and they certainly hadn't administered any first aid. There had been no attempt to staunch the bleeding and no one had checked if Stephen was breathing. The police seemed much more concerned with DeWayne's involvement in the crime. It was later ascertained that first responders had assumed they were dealing with a drug-related attack and that DeWayne was somehow involved. No one was buying the story of the gang of five white boys who had stabbed Stephen and run was buying the story of the gang of five white boys who had stabbed Stephen and run off into the night,

despite the three very recent cases of five white boys in Eltham doing just that. They also didn't believe that two black boys were really just waiting for the bus. By the time the paramedics had shown up, 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence had bled to death on the side of the road. Back in the Lawrence home, Doreen had just arrived back from her course and there was a knock at the front door. It was their neighbor and his son Joe who told them that there had been an incident on Well Hall Road and that they thought Stephen might have been hurt. Neville and Doreen called 999 but they didn't get any answers so they

jump in their car and start to search for Stephen themselves. They can't find him nor can they see any police cars or hear any sirens. They decide to head to the hospital and as soon as they walk in, they see Duane. All three are ushered into a side room and Duane doesn't say a word, despite both Neville and Doreen asking him what happened. Stephen Lawrence was pronounced dead at 11.12pm. His parents and Duane Brooks were informed of his death shortly after. The distraught Lawrences went home to their two other children and Duane spent the night in the Plumstead police station. According to Duane, there was relentless questioning about the white gang's use of the N-word. Was he sure that's what he'd heard? Is it possible it was just a nickname Stephen had? Yes, you heard that right. The London Metropolitan Police asked whether the N-word could have been a nickname of an 18-year-old boy who had just died on the side of the road.

And it only gets worse, guys. The Met do not come out of this well at all. In the 24 hours after the murder, police received no less than 26 anonymous tip-offs regarding who the Gang of Five were. There had been several incidents of this nature in the past few years, remember, and this to me just sounds like the people of Eltham had had enough and were dobbing them in. Most of these tips were phone calls saying there were a group of five lads in their teens about 16, 17 that were known for carrying knives, being super racist and terrorising the neighbourhood. The most significant of these tips, however, came in the form of a letter in a phone box. The envelope read, Plumstead Police, for eyes of officer in charge only,

and in brackets it says, Eltham Stabbing. Inside the letter read, The people involved in last night's stabbing are 1. Neil Acourt 2. David Norris 3. Jamie Acourt 4. Gary Dobson. Names one and two are also rumoured with Wimpy Bar Stabbing, brackets, Eltham. The stabbing that they're referring to

had happened just the month before. A young guy called Stacey Benefield had been stabbed with a sword, but he had survived. A great number of tip-offs that came into the police mentioned the same names written in the phone box note and also the name of Luke Knight, who was known to hang around with the same group. Despite this, no arrests were made. Ian Crampton, detective on the case, claims that information isn't evidence, that there is a distinct difference. And he's absolutely right, but don't you think that 26 pieces of corroborating evidence might be worth having a look at? And if information isn't evidence, why do you even bother to appeal for information and crimes?

So you can fucking follow it up, not just ignore it. The Met also defend this bizarre decision by arguing that the Acorn brothers, Dobson, Norris and Knight were juveniles and to arrest juveniles with no real evidence was a very risky move. And whilst the Met were busy not making arrests and just making excuses for not making arrests, they sent two family liaison officers to the Lawrence's home. Doreen and Neville would later recount that their line of questioning didn't seem to be concerned with the death of their son at all, but more to do with Stephen's connections to the criminal underworld. And this is just so typical. It has to fit their narrative, right? Has to fit that Stephen Lawrence got himself killed

because of his connections to drug dealing, to violent gangs, to something to do with the seedy criminal underworld. And then you don't have to worry about it because it's just another black gangbanger who got killed, right? That's what they want this story to tell them but that was not the case they kept bringing up the fact that a pair of gloves had been found near the scene of steven's murder and the liaison officers asked doreen if steven had owned gloves like these neville understood this as an implication that steven was a burglar i mean what other possible reason could a black youth have for wearing gloves, right? So the family liaison officers, like their job is to go and like speak to the family and assure them that everything is in hand, everything that they can possibly be doing is being done.

And I just don't feel like that's what they did in this situation. They have a racial profile of Stephen Lawrence. They have a racial profile of his family and they're gone to see if he fits into it. 100%. Family liaison officers are not there to fucking investigate the case. They're there to act as the link between the family and the police to make sure information and communication is happening effectively. Why are they going around there asking about these gloves and interrogating this family that have just lost their son? And also that night Stephen was wearing four or five layers of thick clothes. It was fucking cold. Who gives a fuck if he's got gloves on? They do.

Neville was so disgusted at this point that he told the officers to leave his home and never return. The Met were looking for something that just wasn't there. Stephen had no criminal convictions and this pattern of assumptions of guilt is something not only apparent in this case but running right into the heart of the British police. Mr and Mrs Lawrence unsurprisingly felt like the police were not supporting them. The institution that was supposed to be seeking justice for the death of their son seemed more concerned with proving his criminality in life rather than arresting his killers so they took things into their own hands and I think this is like the ultimate tragedy with the Stephen Lawrence case. Tragedy that is inherent with all the cases that we cover, which is that somebody has stolen your life or done something horrendous to you,

which is tragedy enough. The tragedy that is compounded in the Stephen Lawrence case and cases like this is when the people who should be seeking justice for you turn around and say that you don't matter and that they don't care. That's exactly it. And there's a really early on interview with Doreen Lawrence, TV interview, and she's saying this is making me want to surround myself with more black people because white people don't care about me. They're not helping me. So that makes me want to recede. It makes me want to just be part of a black-only community. Solicitor Imran Khan, who is just such a badass, he's so cool, was called to the Lawrence home on the 25th of April, so just three days after Stephen's death. It only takes three days for the Lawrences to realise that the police are not on their side. Imran Khan would continue to

represent the Lawrences in their fight for justice for the next 25 years. Khan sent multiple letters to the police asking when they might expect arrests to be made and whether any evidence had been found. His letters went completely unanswered. On the same day, a police photographer captured Jamie Acourt coming out of his house with a bin liner, getting in his car and driving off. But the surveillance team just hadn't turned up that day for some reason. So this bin liner, potentially full of evidence, was never seen again. And then there was a changeover in management of the case. Three days in and a murder inquiry and they're changing the head officer. So this bin liner, this potentially incredibly

important evidence just seems to be one of those things that fell through the cracks in the changeover of officers. And Detective Superintendent Whedon, who took over the case in a TV interview when asked whether he would be looking for racialists, he answered that this case was not simply a race issue. It was rather more complex than that. Is it? Definitely not. Definitely not. Strangers attacking another stranger while slinging the N-word around doesn't seem particularly complex to me. Stranger attacks are difficult to pin a motive on usually, but I really do not think that this is the case here.

But in order to admit that this attack was racially motivated, one has to admit that there is a racism problem in Eltham and it is never in the Met's interest to do that. So five days after Stephen's murder, hundreds of people attended a vigil. After the fourth racist murder in the area, the people were saying we've had enough and something has to be done. But again, there is no movement on the case. The Met still arguing that they did not have enough cause to arrest the Acorp brothers Dobson, Norris and Knight, despite Neil Acorp being picked out of an identity parade by Duane Brooks. But all this changed on the 4th of May when Nelson Mandela met with Doreen and Neville during a state visit to the UK. Mandela stated

that in South Africa, people were used to such attacks and claimed it was very concerning that such things were happening in Britain. The meeting of Mandela and the Lawrences was televised nationally, and Doreen is just such an amazing woman. She calmly says straight to the camera, if her son was white and he had been murdered by black people, the police would have rounded up every black person in sight. But they hadn't done that. And in not doing that, they were telling young white people, you can do whatever you want to black people and we won't stop you. There will be no consequences. And the day after this televised meeting, despite no new evidence

coming to light, the police, surprise, surprise, finally arrest the prime suspects, the Acourt brothers, Neil and Jamie, Gary Dobson, David Norris and Luke Knight. The houses were searched and evidence was seized. A jacket of Dobson's and some jeans belonging to Norris will become crucial later on. Although many nights were taken as evidence, including a full on sword and scabbard, none of them could be identified as the murder weapon. When questioned, all of the Gang of Five are total lockboxes, only answering no comment or no reply. They do this the whole way through, guys. It's incredibly frustrating, so get ready. Except Gary Dobson, because Gary Dobson had a little bit more explaining to do. During a house visit that the police had made

to his home in the days after the murder, Dobson had told the police that he had been in all night on the evening of the 22nd of April. But the police had witnessed testimony from a local teen who'd placed Dobson at the Acorts' house looking shifty and cleaning himself up with the Acort brothers and Norris at about midnight, the night Stephen was murdered. Dobson changed his story and agreed that, yes, he had popped out at about quarter to midnight to return, get this, a Bob Marley CD that he had borrowed from Neil and Jamie.

Fuck off. What absolute bollocks. He's literally saying, how could I possibly be racist? I listen to reggae music. We all listen to Bob Marley together and we hold hands. There's no way we could possibly be racist. Dobson also repeatedly lies about knowing David Norris. But the police have a photograph of the two standing together outside the A Court's house

the week before Stephen's death. Everyone knows they all hang around together. Why would you lie about that? And to this day, Doreen Lawrence is adamant that these initial arrests would not have He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Combs. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what you said. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today, I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment, charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom.

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two I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met but a couple of years ago I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge but this wasn't my time to go a gentleman named andy saved my life i still haven't found him this is a story that i came across purely by chance but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where i've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health this is season two of finding and this time if all goes to plan we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. On the 7th of May, two members of the Gang of Five are charged with the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

Exactly which two, it's not totally clear. I think it's because they were minors. Yeah, I think that is the case. And the next day, so the 8th of May, there was a protest to close down the BNP headquarters in nearby Welling. The Lawrences didn't go. They didn't want to be associated with this kind of violence. But Duane does go and is captured on CCTV flipping a BMW over with others after the protest became violent. The Welling protest makes the papers, our favourite paper to be exact, not only had the Daily Mail printed a picture of the flipped BMW, they had printed pictures of Stephen and his family, despite the fact that they were never even there.

Neville was outraged by this, and luckily for him, he knew the editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, personally, because Neville, who was a plasterer or handyman by trade, had plastered Paul's house a few years before. So Neville rang him up to complain. Dacre apologised and told Neville that he had no idea it was his son, which is bollocks, because if you look at the spread, it's a picture of Stephen, a picture of the protest, a picture of the damaged car, and a picture of Doreen and Neville. So I think he knew. He just didn't care. And also, it's always somebody's son.

Yeah, I just feel like him being like, oh my God, I'm so sorry, I had no idea it was you. That doesn't absolve you of everything. It's always someone. So Dacre invited the Lawrences to set the record straight in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail, which they did. And they made it very clear that they were not involved with the protests. And it feels like everyone at this point was just scrambling for Stephen's murder. Everyone wanted it to belong to their cause.

But ultimately, this was the murder of an 18-year-old boy on the streets of Eltham that was completely ignored by the police. Oh, yeah, totally. I just feel like Dacre saying, oh, I'm so sorry I printed that when it was not the case. But I tell you how you can fix it for yourself. Nothing to do with me. Come and give me an exclusive interview of this case that is on everyone's lips. They could have just printed a retraction. He's still turning it for his gain. Absolutely. But then on the 29 29th of July, came a devastating blow. The Crown Prosecution Service deemed that there was insufficient evidence to bring the prosecution of the two prime suspects to trial. The charges against the two members of the gang were dropped,

and despite the efforts of the Lawrence's barrister, Michael Mansfield QC, the CPS refused to prosecute. But this was just not good enough for Dorian and Neville. It was their full-time job to keep Stephen's case in the public eye. The Met had let them down and now the justice system had let them down. So for the first time in 150 years, they launched a private prosecution against those they believed had murdered their son. They launched this private prosecution in September of 1994. The Lawrence's legal team knew that this had to be played incredibly carefully because if they charge the five suspects with the murder of Stephen, the case is brought to trial and they are found not guilty or the case is thrown out, they walk free forever because of the double jeopardy law preventing any person from being tried twice for the same crime.

This is their only shot and it is a huge risk. The police managed to plant a secret camera in Dobson's flat and they captured really disturbing footage. All five of the prime suspects feature heavily in the footage and they talk at length about their hatred for black people, graphically describing ways of torturing and killing black people and how great Enoch Powell is. And for our international listeners who may not be super familiar with Powell, he was a super racist politician who gave a really famous speech in 1968 about the perils of immigration, predicting the woes that would betide the white man if he let the immigrant take his power. It was called the Rivers of Blood speech. And it's, as you can imagine, very, very racist. Enoch Powell is also the most famous person to have gone to my university, which is very disappointing. That is disappointing. And there was a big uproar about this actually a

couple of weeks ago because the BBC decided to air the full speech, Rivers of Blood speech that Enoch Powell gave. And lots of people were like, how dare you? Why are you showing this? Don't show this on the BBC. But I actually think absolutely show that shit because we can't whitewash over history. We don't get to pick and choose what we show just to paint ourselves in some positive way. That Enoch Powell speech was given. So yes, absolutely show it. It's important that we remember the bad things that were said because it's absolutely still relevant to the way some people's mentality still exists today. I completely agree. And I feel like whenever race tensions flare up in the UK, Enoch Powell is always thrown into the mix. And

there are always people who are like, he's right. So we need to keep talking about it. We can't just delete the rivers of blood speech. It happened. It's a part of our history as a nation. It's part of our political history. Absolutely. And I'm saying that as a person of colour, as a woman of colour, who's first generation immigrant in this country, play the damn Enoch Powell speech so that we can all see. So back to the footage that the police filmed of these five, it's clear to see that they're carrying knives constantly. The concealment of knives before leaving the house is clearly captured on a daily basis. The most disturbing piece of footage, however, includes Neil Acor wielding a knife in this weird overarm fashion as if he's bowling a cricket ball.

And what makes this not just really weird and horrifying is that it's exactly this type of movement that would have caused the shoulder wound that Stephen Lawrence had suffered. The prosecution really felt that this footage, although technically circumstantial, the suspects never actually discussed the murder of Stephen Lawrence. But it does show the group to be violent, racist and carrying knives. It doesn't prove the murder, but it does indicate that the Acord brothers Norris, Dobson and Knight have the capacity to carry out a racially motivated attack with knives. In April 1995, the private prosecution team brought charges against the Acord brothers Dobson and Norris. The private prosecution's case also relied heavily on the testimony of Dwayne Brooks and his identification of Neil Acourt and other members of the Gang of Five during identity parades. Dwayne's testimony was undermined by a statement given by a Sergeant Crowley

who claimed that Dwayne had picked Neil Acourt out of a lineup because of his descriptions that friends had given him, not because he actually recognized him. Something else they used to discredit DeWayne was that he only got a fleeting glance at these attackers because it was such a short, quick attack. And DeWayne's credibility was further shot to shreds in October 1993 when he was arrested for violent misconduct for his part in the car damage at the Welling protest months before. And it is rumoured that one of the police officers present at the identity parades at which DeWayne ID'd a court recognised DeWayne from the protest and instigated his arrest. DeWayne's testimony was deemed inadmissible.

And with no reliable witness, the case just fell apart. And this meant that the jury never got to see the secret camera footage. It is important to note, though, that this is the first time that the Stephen Lawrence case ever made it to trial. And it was the first time that the Lawrences ever heard DeWayne's side of the story. Up until that point, they had believed rumours that Dwayne had left Stephen and just run off. And to be fair, it does look like that. And of course, you're going to ask those questions if your child is dead. Why did Dwayne get away totally unharmed? Why was Stephen the only one who was attacked? They were both there. They're both black. Why was it that Dwayne gets away with it? And there are people who don't agree with this, but I think Stephen was

just further down the road and they got to him first. That's my opinion. There are people who do think Duane just left. But I just think like this is a frenzied attack out of the blue in the dark and they were outnumbered. Your instinct would be to run. He might not have even to see anything. The idea that Duane is to blame in any way for Stephen's death is utter bollocks. The five guys who did it are the ones to blame. Any kind of blame being placed on Dwayne is just utter rubbish. What crushes him is that he's the one who told the police it was a head wound. So he feels responsible for them not looking for the stab wounds when actually that's their job. Again, exactly. You are just an 18 year old kid. Why is anybody taking anything you're saying about

what happened after you've just been the victim of an attack seriously? The police should have checked Stephen, who was clearly injured and they didn't. I can completely understand Duane's survivor's guilt, but anybody placing any blame on him is diabolical. My heart just breaks for him. He really feels responsible as well for the prosecution's case falling apart. And it must be really hard knowing that everyone thinks you left your mate to die, especially their parents. Doreen Lawrence has never spoken to DeWayne in the 25 years. And she says that's because he's never told me what actually happened.

He's never spoken to me about it. That is really heartbreaking. So when Doreen heard that the case folded and that the suspects were yet again walking free, she collapsed. And Neville had had enough. He went to Jamaica to get away from it all. And Imran Khan, their lawyer, launched a complaint against the Met Police and their investigation into Stephen's death. So an inquest was called and the five suspects, yet again, refused to even give their names when they're asked. The only words they utter in the

courtroom were, on my solicitor's advice, I exercise my right to remain silent. All of them on repeat for every question. And this is just them holding the court, the Lawrences and the British justice system in total contempt. The inquest ruled on the 13th of February 1997 that Stephen Lawrence was unlawfully killed in a completely unprovoked racist attack by five youths. The next day, Sir Paul Condon, the commissioner of the Met at the time, went to lunch with our friend Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail. Side note, isn't it nuts to think that the Met was going for lunch with the Mail? I bet they still do.

And I think we underestimate how the police work with the press because there's embargoes on stuff. It does happen. I just I had never thought about it before. Just like a casual lunch between the commissioner of the Met and the editor of the Daily Mail. There's just something really like gross about that. But according to Dacre, Sir Condon said that the Gang of Five were guilty of sin, but that there was just not enough evidence and the CPS would never support the case. So Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail, who had his walls plastered by Neville Lawrence, ran a front page

headline the next day that read, Murderers. The Mail accuses these men of killing Stephen Lawrence. If we are wrong, let them sue us. And underneath this headline were pictures of Neil Acourt, Jamie Acourt, Gary Dobson, David Norris and Luke Knight. Cue an absolute shitstorm. This was a bold move by The Mail and it did seem to interfere with the course of justice. The Acourt brothers in particular claim to have been put on trial by media. Although I do think they are guilty, I have to agree with Mansfield, the Lawrence family's barrister, that the day that guilt or innocence is judged by the Daily Mail is a sad day. I also find it a bit uncomfortable that the editor is using it as a personal campaign,

being like, oh, I know Neville Lawrence, blah, blah, blah. No, fuck you. No, you weren't. You were selling papers. You knew they were going to fly off the shelves if you accuse someone of murder on the front page but Jack Straw home secretary at the time had a different angle he advocated that because the headline had come from a right-wing paper like the mail it gave the Labour government often criticized for being too left-wing soft on crime and liberal some space to push for a public inquiry. And famously, that's exactly what happened. Headed by the former High Court judge and decorated special forces operative Sir William McPherson, the public inquiry into the police investigation

of the murder of Stephen Lawrence was launched in March 1998. The inquiry made some truly shocking discoveries, including that not only was no first aid administered to Stephen by police, the first aid kit was not even taken out of the car. Dr Richard Stone, medical advisor to the McPherson inquiry, found that although all of the officers on the scene had passed first aid courses, none of them knew the ABC of first aid, airways, breathing, circulation. None of them even knew that. They literally didn't know the first thing about first aid. That is the first thing you learn. Police also admitted that they did have enough evidence to arrest two days after the murder, but didn't because that's key as well. After the Mandela interview was televised, they didn't have any more evidence than they did 48 hours later. And unbelievably, Detective Superintendent Whedon, who had taken over the case two days in, admitted that he was

confused about his power of arrest. What does that even mean? He's not even a PC. He's a detective superintendent. What hope do we have if the police don't know what the power of arrest is? Is this just feigning ignorance? You're either incompetent or you're corrupt and racist. And is this guy deciding it's better for me to claim incompetence rather than corruption and racism? How do you become a detective superintendent and not understand the concept of power of arrest? I don't know this, but I think that you only really have to do two years on the beat, like doing actual arrests before you can start working your way up. So is it possible he just didn't really do that many arrests before he was behind a desk? Maybe.

Maybe. I think you're right, though. I hadn't thought of that before. It probably is better to look completely incompetent. Yeah. Those are your only two options in a situation like this. And even if you only do tears on the beat, do you not have to do like exams, like sergeant exams and things like that? Oh, yeah, I'm sure you do. Yeah. I'm sure they're going to touch on that there. Yeah, but I've crammed stuff for exams that I don't know anymore.

In a practical application of your job, though. Yeah, no, definitely not. The five prime suspects are called to give evidence to the inquiry. There are hundreds of people outside Hannibal House in Elephant and Castle where the inquiry was being held and they were baying for blood. As a public inquiry, any member of the public has a right to attend. But the police were stopping people at the door. And this caused such a commotion that violence broke out and CS gas was used by police.

And the Lawrences thought they might have a riot on their hands. So Doreen and Neville come out to speak to the hundred strong crowd, asking for their respect and cooperation. Neville reminded them that the last thing they need is to be branded as hooligans. That is not going to lead us to the truth. The crowd obeyed their wishes until, that is is the five prime suspects walk out after giving their evidence. And the photos and the footage of them walking out is something that is just like seared in my mind because they walk out like thugs, like hooligans. They walk out like they're leaving a football match that their team has just won and they're smashed. That's exactly what they look like.

It's disgusting. They walk out to a crowd hurling abuse at them and the five spit at the crowd. Norris even hit somebody. And in the wake of the inquiry, Commissioner Condon apologises for the failures of the force, but implores Macpherson not to accuse the Met of institutional racism, claiming that there may be a few bad apples in the mix at the Met, but that it's not all of them. It really pisses me off that he asks the Macpherson report to not make the finding that of institutional racism, because this is such a clearly racially charged case. It's not good enough. How can you fight racism when you don't even and won't even acknowledge its existence? But his pleas luckily fell on deaf ears because on the

24th of February 1999, the Macpherson Report was published. Doreen and Neville were invited to the Home Office by Jack Straw, who told them that this inquiry, this report, was a watershed moment for Britain. Institutional racism was defined by the Macpherson Report as a collective failure of an organisation to provide an effective service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin. And the Met Police was found by the report to be absolutely riddled with it. I really don't think that there is any doubt that the assumptions made by the first police on the scene were based on Stephen and Dwayne's race and that these assumptions not only cost Stephen his life, but they informed the rest of the investigation and prevented the collection of crucial crime

scene evidence. The lack of forensic evidence in the early years directly contributed to the case being thrown out by the CPS. The Macpherson report demanded a rigorous change in the way the Met was running and crucially, the way it was training its recruits. The report also suggested that the double jeopardy law be scrapped, which it was in April 2005. This meant that even though the Gang of Five had already stood trial for Stephen's murder, if new evidence came to light, they could be tried again. And this is where it starts to get better, friends, because finally, it is time to welcome super cop DCI Clive Driscoll to the story. He's just the most amazing man. He goes to old people's homes and sings. Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner while doing a Sherlock Holmes impression.

I just I love him. King Clive. King Clive. In 2006, Deptford Police Department was bought and DCI Clive Driscoll or King Clive was sent to have a look around the building to make sure there was nothing embarrassing left behind. He came across a whole pile of boxes labelled Operation Fishpool, which had been the codename for the original investigation into Stephen's death. pretended just to bin them. But this just doesn't sit right with our Clive. So he rang up now commissioner of the Met, Christa de Dick, and told her that he would take on the case. Clive had a hard time winning over the Lawrences, but he does get there. He quickly realized that he couldn't believe anything he had been told about the case. He gave one example where he had been told that Doreen had refused to let the police read Stephen's school records, but then he found a statement in which Doreen had offered them up freely to the police. So he worked back through all of the evidence in the boxes

and discerned Stephen's attack was not as fleeting as it had been presented in court. As we said at the beginning of this episode, the attack lasted between 25 and 50 seconds. This was crucial because the length of the attack made forensic evidence much more likely. Angela Gallup was the forensic scientist managing the project, and this information, coupled with the stride that had been made in forensics since 1993, meant her team had a much better idea of what they were now looking for. Whilst examining Stephen's clothes for potential suspect saliva samples, Angela's team found that the fibres from the red polo shirt Stephen had been wearing on the night of his death were absolutely everywhere.

There were loads of them on absolutely every item of his clothing. This meant that it was pretty likely that it would be on the clothes of his attackers. And it was. Fibres from Stephen's polo shirt were found on Gary Dobson's jacket. Fibres from Stephen's green elephant cord trousers were found on David Norris's jeans, along with several of Stephen's hairs. And crucially, they find fragments of Stephen's blood on the inside of Dobson's jacket. This may seem like an odd place for the blood to be found, but due to the knife that stabbed Stephen just going straight down and up, because remember, he does this overarm thing and it goes straight into his

shoulder. So it would have come up vertically as well. It is entirely possible that a drop of blood could have landed on the inside of Dobson's neckline. Was this the smoking gun Doreen and Neville had been waiting all these years for? Possibly. Because on this new evidence, Dobson, who was serving three years on drug convictions in Belm evidence, Dobson, who was serving three years on drug convictions in Belmarsh, and Norris, who was in the pub, were arrested and charged. Dobson and Norris revert to their old routine of evading police questioning. The answer to everything is no comment, no comment, no comment, no comment. It's worked before, right? And it's been working for 18 years. So why change it? But not this time.

Because in this trial, the jury were finally shown the secret camera footage from Dobson's flat that was taken all those years ago. And it totally ruins Dobson's and Norris's credibility. Couple this with the new forensic evidence and its curtains. The defense, in an attempt to discredit the new evidence, presented examples of the Operation Fishpool evidence being improperly stored, which could have led to cross-contamination of the evidence. This truly is astounding.

You would think that this is one of the cases where the police would keep the evidence properly, but sadly not. Even after a public inquiry and £6 million being put into an investigation, they can't even keep the evidence properly. That is mind-blowing. But they're so incentivised. This is all just feeling like such a cover-up and a conspiracy. If anything, I'm surprised there was any evidence even still there. The defence's argument is that somehow in the improper storage of the evidence,

and when you test clothing for saliva, you have to make it wet. So their argument is that in this collection of evidence and putting water on the clothes, they argue that a fragment of Stephen's blood became liquid again, like Jesus, and flew onto Dobson's clothes. The defense, despite trying to poke holes in the new forensic evidence, they didn't provide a scientific expert of any kind. The prosecution, on the other hand, conducted numerous experiments, but they were never able to replicate a situation where a drop of Stephen's blood could have become liquid again and just flown onto Dobson's jacket collar. So how could it have become contaminated after the event, after the crime, when it was in storage? That blood got there the night of the

attack. I also think if that's your only argument as the defense being, oh, well, this evidence is contaminated, it's inadmissible. If that is your only defense, why don't you have a scientist to give testimony for you? That's really true. Because it didn't happen. So finally, 18 years after they had murdered Stephen Lawrence, Gary Dobson and David Norris were convicted of his murder. Dobson got 15 years minimum and Norris a 14 year minimum sentence. King Clive received a judge's commendation for his work and the judge basically told him, great work, now go and get after the other three. You really would have thought that after this incredible success

that the Met would have thrown everything they had behind King Clive, but they didn't. The day after the verdict was announced, DCI Clive Driscoll was taken off the case. Why? I don't, I have no answers. I genuinely don't know. I think it's fair that he was going to go after this determinedly. He had had huge amounts of success. He'd already put these two guys away. He was going to go digging into places that other people in the Met didn't want him digging. He was going to find things and he was going to expose their corruption and the racism that was there. And they couldn't have it. They were like, fine, you got two of them. Now you're done. Let this go.

Yeah, we've done enough for the public to let us off the hook with this one. And there are some murmurings that the Stephen Lawrence case may be closed. The Met have announced that it's unlikely that there will be any more developments in the case. But the repercussions of Stephen's murder and the McPherson report are still ringing. In 2006, journalist Mark Daly went undercover in the Manchester Metropolitan Police Department to see if there really had been any changes in the training of our police. He made a film about it. It's called The Secret Policeman. It is chilling. I really can't recommend it enough. But spoilers, he finds a lot of racism in the police. So give it a watch. I will give away one particular scene, though, in which a fellow trainee policeman tells Daily that the McPherson report was a kick in the bollocks for

every white man and that Stephen Lawrence's murderers should be given diplomatic immunity. They only did what everyone should be given diplomatic immunity. They only did what everyone should be doing. And that is not an old man police officer in the 50s. That is a trainee police officer in the 2000s. Race hate is alive and well in the UK and denying it is helping nobody. I couldn't agree more. I think sometimes the rest of the world and even within the UK, we want to think that race hate and poor race relations is not really an issue, but it absolutely fucking is. And just particularly going through this story, being the sister of a six foot tall, tattooed, dark skinned guy who hangs out in these

places and like reminds me of Stephen in lots of ways very accomplished athletic intelligent but I'm sure would either not back down or could find himself easily in a situation where something like this happens it's absolutely fucking terrifying and the other thing we haven't really got proper answers to is why it took the police so long to make those arrests all the way back in 1993 why did they wait when they had the evidence? And there is one theory that stands out from the rest. Not only were the Met institutionally racist, they were corrupt as fuck too. Former Home Secretary Jack Straw admitted that he had seen some staggeringly corrupt police officers in his time. And he would know as Home Secretary because it's absolutely the

last stop for cases like that. Neil Putnam was one such police corrupt officer working in South East London during the time of and after Stephen's murder. When he was investigated for corruption by CIB3, the police's anti-corruption unit, he quickly rolled over and became an informant. One of the officers he was informing on was John Davidson, who was an integral part of Operation Fishpool, and the officer to interview Gary Dobson, one of the five. Neil Putnam argues that the Stephen Lawrence case was stalled at every turn because of Officer John Davidson, who had said to Putnam in no uncertain terms that he was being paid off by Clifford Norris. Who's Clifford Norris? Well, he was a very well-known gangster in the area, and he also happened to be David Norris's dad. So how the investigation was hampered isn't

exactly clear, but documents were definitely disposed of, so it is possible that the McPherson report was not even given all of the information it needed to make a true assessment of the Met. Equally disturbingly, former police officer Peter Francis has come forward and claimed that he was sent undercover by the Met specifically to undermine the Lawrence family in the public eye. His mission, he claims, was to make the public feel less sympathy towards them. The Met deny this and there is no surviving record of Francis's campaign. But quite a lot of pertinent documents happen to go missing around this case. So it's not outside the realm of possibility that Francis is telling the truth. And if this is true, the ramifications are enormous.

Theresa May has called an SDS operation inquiry into undercover policing. The report is yet to be published. The National Crime Agency are investigating accusations of police corruption. John Davidson, of course, denies everything. Luke Knight still lives in Eltham. Jamie Acourt lives in Spain. Neil Acourt is in prison on drugs charges. It looks unlikely that the remaining three will ever be brought to justice.

Doreen and Neville Lawrence divorced some time ago and Neville has relocated permanently to Jamaica, finding the UK too painful. Doreen is now a baroness and peer in the House of Lords. Her tireless quest for justice is completely unmatched and in her own words, driven by anger. She said, if I were not angry, I wouldn't have been able to keep going. The Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust has been running for 20 years and it supports kids from disadvantaged backgrounds of any kind in choosing their careers. Five of the young people that it has supported are now fully qualified architects. I think this was an important one to tell, not just for UK listeners, but for international listeners, just to understand.

Oh, definitely. And I think the UK pats itself on the back quite a lot about race relations. And we think we're streets ahead of everyone else. And we really, really aren't. I agree. Thanks for listening, guys. If you're listening to this on the day of release, please give us a vote for the listener's choice of the British Podcast Awards. The link is in the description. As usual, guys, come follow us at Red Handed the Pod on all the social medias. And if you'd like to go that one step further and help support the show,

you can do so at patreon.com slash red handed. And here are some people who you can do so at patreon.com slash red handed and here are some people who decided to do that this week we've got emily rose andrea jean morris janine botfield coral appleton jonathan kilby phillips louisa shipston sophie burke nathan steph jackson and tracy wallace and also vanessa mertz who upgraded her support with us thank you very much for giving us your delicious money we really appreciate it it makes a massive difference don't forget to tell your mates and we will see you next week bye you They say Hollywood is where dreams are made.

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