Stephen Lawrence Memorial Service

Today a memorial service will be held to mark the 20th anniversary of the death of Stephen Lawrence.

Stephen, 18, was killed by a gang of racists who stabbed him in an unprovoked attack as he waited for a bus in Eltham, southeast London on April 22, 1993.

His family's quest for justice for the murder of their son, became emblematic of the inequitable and racist justice system which BME communities were subject to - over policed and under-protected.

It took 19 years of tireless campaigning by Doreen and Neville Lawrence to bring any of his murderers to justice, due to a police investigation which was marred by incompetence, allegations of racism and a failure of leadership.

In January 2012 Gary Dobson and David Norris were convicted for murder, however the attack was perpetrated by gang of five or six men and the remainder of the killers have never been punished. The Metropolitan Police have stated that the case still remains live.

The Lawrence murder has been pivotal to reshaping race relations in the UK and a debt of honour is owed to them. The heroic campaigning by the Lawrence family to bring justice for the death of their son resulted in landmark legal changes which changed the legal and cultural landscape. Home Secretary, Jack Straw, announced in July 1997 a judicial inquiry by Sir William Macpherson into the police investigation. Macpherson’s findings were unwelcomingly honest for many, coining the phrase "institutional racism"to describe the, 

"collective failure of an organisation to provide a professional service … through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people".

The Macpherson Report made 70 recommendations - 67 of which led to specific changes in practice or law and created some of the strongest anti-discrimination powers in western Europe.

One of the recommendations created a new definition of a racial incident which obliged the police to investigate every incident that the victim believes to be racially motivated and created heavier penalties which means the courts recognise that crimes motivated purely by hatred are different.

The recommendations also included the introduction of detailed targets for the recruitment, retention and promotion of black and Asian officers

Straw recently claimed that the report has played a key part in a "deep-seated cultural change" towards race in Britain:

"The pervasive, open racism of the fifties and sixties, the pernicious, sniggering racism of the seventies, eighties and nineties is gone. For that we have to thank Doreen and Neville Lawrence, above all others."

Whilst progress has undoubtedly been made since 1993 when the proportion of minority ethnic officers was stuck at only 2%, in 2008 the figure had reached just over 4%. The target has since been abandoned and the latest numbers for 2012 show that the proportion has reached 5%. That is a total of only 6,664 officers out of 134,101 officers across England and Wales and some officers still complain about specialist squads where black or Asian people are said not to fit.

For the police, the Lawrence case has fundamentally changed the way they investigate murders and support the families of murder victims with the appointment of family liaison officers. Despite that, Doreen Lawrence has said too many officers still assume that black victims of violence are themselves involved in criminal activity.

To mark the anniversary, a poster has been put up in New Scotland Yard featuring a personal message from Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan Howe about the investigation.The poster says:

"Twenty years ago the Lawrence family lost their loved son, Stephen. We let them down by not catching his murderers. Then last year we finally brought two of his killers to justice. The Met won't forget Stephen Lawrence."

Neville Lawrence has said:

"It took us nearly 20 years to get this result and we did not know whether we would get it. I do not know if I am going to live another 20 years but I have not given up on the detectives finding a way to get the others."

The memorial service will be held today at 3pm at St Martins-in-the-Field Church, Trafalgar Square.

RIP Stephen.

Francine Fernandes