Never forget Stephen Lawrence

THIS MONTH marks 0 years since Stephen Lawrence was murdered on the streets of Eltham, south-east London, by a racist gang.

Today, he would have been years old. Had this vicious gang not stabbed him to death, Stephen might have fulfilled his ambition to be an architect. He may well have had children, or even grandchildren.

The tragedy of his murder on April 22, 199 sparked a grassroots community campaign of activists and his parents, Doreen and Neville.

It prompted the then-shadow home secretary ack Straw to ask Operation Black Vote to organise a press conference in 1996, where Mr Straw said he would establish a public inquiry if Labour were elected.

And so, after Tony Blair’s victory in 1997, the inquiry came into being, led by Sir William Macpherson.

His 72 recommendations in 1999 and the finding that police were institutionally racist shook up Britain, and sparked a far-reaching conversation about racism, not just in the police but across society.

The debate underpinned the Race Relations (Amendment) Act in 2000, which introduced ‘public duties’ on public services to promote race equality, in an effort to prevent racism from manifesting in the first place.

For the next eight or nine years, the ‘Stephen Lawrence agenda’ of action to tackle race inequality, and consultative committees where Black members gave their input into policies and practices.

That agenda began to wane around 200 , when a new ‘multiple identities’ approach took over, leading to a new law that merged race equality with other groups who were discriminated against, leading to the axing of the Commission for Racial Equality.

Chased

The Voice has been following the Stephen Lawrence case from the very start, when we broke news of his killing with the headline “murdered for being black.”

Neville Lawrence told us: “It doesn’t take a genius to see it was a racist murder. He was chased down the street by about six white youths, for no other reason than he was black.”

As the inquiry report was missioner Sir (now Lord) Paul Condon.

Mr Brooks said in 1999: “Racism killed my best friend Stephen. Racism also rubbished our chances of convicting the killers of Stephen Lawrence.

“Racism has also shattered my life.”

The inquiry found that the failure of the initial police investigation had compromised the chances of prosecution. It wasn’t until 12 years later, in 2011, that two of the murderers Gary Dobson and David Norris faced a trial following fresh evidence. Neil and amie Acort, and Luke night, were never convicted.

Following the inquiry report, The Voice ran a piece headlined “The lessons that must be learnt”, which called for real action on issues like stop and search disproportionality and the lack of Black police officers that still haunt the force 2 years later.

Next month, The Voice will be publishing a special edition with key interviews and reflections on the life and death of Stephen Lawrence, looking back at Macpherson and what has changed – or not changed – since then, and where we go from here following the Casey Review.