Metropolitan police incapable of change, says Neville Lawrence

The father of Stephen Lawrence has said the Metropolitan police’s failure to change over the past 30 years disrespects his family’s sacrifice and the loss of their son.

Dr Neville Lawrence told the Guardian he did not believe Britain’s biggest force would reform, even after a report this week by Louise Casey found them guilty of institutional racism, misogyny and homophobia.

The Lawrence family fought for justice after the murder of Stephen, 18, at a south-east London bus stop in 1993 by a racist gang. They won a public inquiry, which in 1999 first labelled the Metropolitan police as institutionally racist.

Lawrence said: “We went through hell and back years ago. All the things coming out now were said so many years ago. They have disrespected our sacrifice and the loss of Stephen.”

Casey’s report said discrimination was “baked” into the Met. Its commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said that while accepting her findings about widespread discrimination, he would not use the term institutional racism, claiming it was ambiguous and political. He vowed that this time the Met would radically change.

Lawrence, 81, said: “They are not going to do anything about it. They are the law; they think they are above everyone else.”

He said the Met had a deep and long history of ignoring facts about their shortcomings, having been the subject of numerous critical official inquiries and reports: “If you go to the doctor and he gives you medicine, and you go home and put it on the shelf, how is that going to make you better? These people are ill. They have to take their medicine.”

Lawrence thinks the Met will say the right things when the heat is on. “You can say anything you want when you think people want you to say it. But later you sit back and you do what you normally do.”

Casey described as “hollow” Rowley’s reasons for refusing to accept the description of his force as institutionally misogynistic, homophobic and racist. Lawrence agreed: “What is it, then, if not institutionally racist? Let him give the name.” Thirty years on from Stephen’s death, his father said: “Why are people still saying the same things about them?”

Lawrence said the Conservative government had let the police get away with poor behaviour: “These people have been in power for 13 years. They have not been able to produce a good home secretary.”

After Labour came to power in 1997, they commissioned the Macpherson inquiry, which began hearings in 1998.

After the murder, police falsely claimed they had faced a wall of silence from the community. Some of the suspects were almost immediately repeatedly named to them, but for a fortnight no arrests were made. Police acted only when Nelson Mandela, who was on a visit to Britain, met the Lawrences and publicly backed their struggle to shame the Met.

Lawrence said: “For the last 30 years, my life has been turned upside down because of the behaviour of the police. When I was growing up in Jamaica, I thought the Metropolitan police was the best in the world.

“When my son was murdered, they squandered all the good luck they had from all the people who came in the day after and named the people. They had all the evidence and they did not arrest the suspects until Nelson Mandela spoke.”

Asked to comment directly on Neville Lawrence’s key points, the Met did not. It defended the commissioner’s stance on not using the term institutional racism and pointed to Rowley’s words earlier this week: “I understand her use of the term institutional but it’s not a term I use myself.

“I’m a practical police officer and I have to use language that’s unambiguous and apolitical. That term means lots of different things to different people and has become politicised in recent debate over the last decade or so.”

‘If you go home and put your medicine on the shelf, how is that going to make you better? They have to take their medicine’