An 18-year-old murder case was finally brought to a conclusion in Great Britain this week. Jason Jouavel of NBC News’ London bureau reports.
Eighteen year old Stephen Lawrence was stabbed to death in 1993, in an unprovoked attack by a gang of 5 or 6 white youths as he waited at a bus stop in Eltham, in south-east London with his friend Duwayne Brooks.
Five men were arrested but never convicted in the subsequent trials which followed. Two of the Metropolitan police’s own internal inquiries found that there were missed opportunities in correlating vital evidence on the subsequent days after the murder.
A public inquiry published in 1999 (The Macpherson report) concluded among other things that the Metropolitan Police were complicit of institutional racism and highlighted the inadequacies of subsequent police operations. His friend Duwayne Brooks was even treated like a suspect when he told the police the gang used racist language before the attack.
The Parents of Stephen Lawrence – Doreen and Neville — have fought a tireless 18 year battle for justice which has finally begun to pay dividends. Along the way, they’ve helped change the way racially motivated crimes are treated.
The Lawrence’s push to highlight the police’s attitude toward hate crime were certainly partially responsible for pushing major legislative changes in Britain.
Doreen Lawrence wept in court when two men: David Norris Gary Dobson, were found guilty of their son’s murder. But the father said in his court statement outside the Old Bailey in London, that he will not rest until the other three perpetrators were also bought to justice.
The retrial of the suspects in the Lawrence murder was only made possible because of advancement in DNA technology and the scrapping of the double-jeopardy law – which allowed a suspect to be tried again for the same crime if new evidence comes to light. The new evidence – minute particles of blood, hair and fibers — were enough to convict the pair of the murder of Stephen Lawrence after almost 19 years. The pair will be sentenced on Wednesday.