Hidden Stories: The Lawrence Inquiry

After more than three decades of fighting for social and racial justice Dr Richard Stone is a little bit more frailer, but once in conversation it's clear that none of the fire that has driven this very kind man has diminished. In fact he’s probably more inpatient and frustrated about the lack of change than before. He tell’s me:

Look Simon, I’m getting on a bit now, its up to you guys to continue the job, I’ll help of course’

Then he lists about 50 people I should meet and link up with to ensure, as he puts it ‘we’re are all working better together’.

Dr Richard Stone was talking to me at the House of Commons just before his book launch: Hidden Stories for the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry.

Stone and his colleagues on that famous panel including Bishop Sentamu made history with their pronouncement that many Black people knew to be true, but become official by this majority white panel: The Metropolitan police, in particular and society in general was institutionally racist.

Those of you not old enough to remember might find it difficult to gauge just what a dramatic impact this would have, not just on the police force but on the whole of British society. And what a relief it was in many ways for African, Asian and Caribbean communities. An acknowledgement that we were not imagining overt or covert racism. It was real.

During the Inquiry itself the heart breaking and graphic account of a racist police force which protected the murderers and characterised the murdered boy Stephen Lawrence and his friend Duwayne Brooks as ‘Black drug dealers’, shocked the Inquiry and the nation. This was not, ‘a rogue police officer/s’ as was often cited by the Met at the time. This, the Inquiry concluded, was an endemic culture which was riddled from top to bottom.

The legislative change which came after the Inquiry would force every public body in the country to confront its own racial prejudices that often occurred without individuals or institutions even recognising exactly what they were doing.

Thirteen years later Stone is angry that the small yet significant gains that were made during that time are being undermined and eroded: Stop and Search figures for Black people, for example, are back at alarming levels; Recorded racism by the police has gone unpunished, and Black deaths in police custody continue to cause great concern.

I haven’t read the book will do in the next few days. For many of us there yesterday, such as Stephen’s mother Doreen, Trade union giant Bill Morris and many others, it was a simple way of saying thank you to this diminutive man with a lion’s heart for justice.

Thank you Dr Stone.

You can buy the book at http://www.policypress.co.uk/display.asp?K=9781447308485

Simon Woolley