A new investigation has begun into allegations that corruption in the Metropolitan police shielded the murderers of Stephen Lawrence, the Guardian has learned.

The National Crime Agency, Britain’s equivalent of the FBI, has been appointed to lead the hunt and has established a team of investigators. It will focus on the first police investigation carried out in 1993 into the murder of the 18-year-old by a racist gang.



Lawrence’s parents have always claimed that corrupt officers engaged in a conspiracy that helped thwart the hunt for the killers, which the Met officially denies.

His mother, Doreen, told the Guardian on Friday that her suspicions about corruption had grown over time.

She said: “We still believe that corruption played a part in keeping Stephen’s killers free. We have had to fight to get this far, so we can finally have a criminal investigation into the former police officers we suspect.

“We ask those that have any information, be they former police officers or criminals, to examine their conscience. They should come forward, so justice can be done. Police corruption has denied us, and others, justice. It is a denial of the trust the police and state have placed in them by citizens. Those who betray the trust placed in them, should face justice, whenever it catches up with them.”

The new inquiry into the corruption claims comes 22 years after the murder, the ramifications of which convulsed the criminal justice system, and continue to do so.

It follows a review ordered by the home secretary, Theresa May, into the Lawrences’ concerns. Published in March 2014, it named a former officer as a suspect and advocated further inquiries into others.

The NCA investigation is examining the conduct of the former detective sergeant John Davidson, who was a key officer in the botched 1993 murder investigation.

Davidson has always denied the allegations and any wrongdoing, a stance he has maintained since first being questioned over his conduct at the 1998 public inquiry into police handling of the case.



John Davidson in Spain. Photograph: BBC/PA

The NCA inquiry is being led by senior investigating officer Roy McComb. He is head of specialist investigations at the NCA and also serves as deputy director.

In April 1993, Lawrence was surrounded and stabbed by a racist gang in Eltham, south-east London. He was a gifted student who wanted to be an architect, his family were churchgoing model citizens, and were stunned when police failed them.

The loss of their son plunged Doreen and Neville Lawrence into a long fight for justice with the police who bungled the first investigation.

The case is one of the most important in the modern history of the British criminal justice system, having sparked inquiries, reforms of the police and challenges to racial attitudes in Britain. Mrs Lawrence was ennobled for her campaign, becoming Lady Lawrence and taking the Labour whip in the House of Lords.

The NCA is directly answerable to the home secretary and its remit is to fight serious and organised crime. The investigation will examine whether there was corruption and who was involved. It is believed this is the first time the NCA has investigated alleged police corruption.

The investigation is being overseen by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the police watchdog. The IPCC, however, is not trusted by Lawrence’s parents, after it exonerated the Met of corruption in 2007.

The NCA said its investigation began on March 9. The IPCC said it was “updating Stephen’s parents...and Duwayne Brooks”, with Stephen the night he was attacked, on progress in the new investigation.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Doreen and Neville Lawrence have claimed for more than two decades that corrupt officers engaged in a conspiracy that helped thwart the hunt for the killers. Photograph: Luke Macgregor/Reuters

Many local residents named the killers in the days after the stabbing, but police failed to arrest them for two weeks until Nelson Mandela highlighted the case during a visit to London.

The first Met murder hunt was found to have been riddled by a string of errors and institutionally racism by the 1999 Macpherson inquiry report. It concluded there was no evidence of corruption.



The But in 2014 a review ordered by the home secretary dismissed years of official denials that corruption had blighted the case.

Headed by Mark Ellison QC, it said there were “reasonable grounds” to suspect Davidson had acted corruptly. It detailed disputed allegations that he had been in the pay of Clifford Norris, the gangster father of one of the prime suspects in the murder, David Norris, who was eventually convicted of the murder.

Unveiling the review in the House of Commons last year, May told MPs there were potentially “outstanding lines” of inquiry against other officers and that she had asked the NCA to advise on how the allegations could best be investigated.

In June 2014 the Guardian and other news organisations reported that an official investigation into claims that the killers were shielded by police corruption would take place. But the scope and who would carry it out had yet to be decided.

At the time, the IPCC said: “We have been engaged in correspondence, seeking to establish the potential scope of the investigation and the resources needed for it. We will determine what form any investigation may take in the near future.”

In July 2015 May said in a speech in Brixton that the criminal investigation into corruption claims in the Lawrence case was “ongoing”.

Her comment was made in a speech about public trust in the police. May reminded her audience she had commissioned Ellison to “review allegations of corruption”. She added: “Following the conclusion of that review, work is ongoing to investigate criminal wrongoing …”

The Macpherson inquiry into the case heard that the Lawrences had suspicions about other officers involved. The Ellison review said that while there were reasonable grounds to suspect Davidson, this was not the case for other former officers. But Ellison added: “There are still some potential lines of inquiry that may be capable of providing such evidence.”

After the finding from Ellison, the Met police said they still believed corruption played no part in shielding the killers. The then assistant commissioner Martin Hewitt said: “There is no new information or evidence that I have to change that position. At this point there is no reason for me to change the position we have had.”

The Ellison review has led to three separate inquiries.

Apart from the NCA investigation into corruption shielding the killers, there is another into claims that the former deputy Met commissioner Sir John Stevens bore responsibility for keeping material on corruption from the 1998 public inquiry into police failings in Stephen’s case. He denies this. There is also a public inquiry into the role of undercover officers allegedly spying on the Lawrence family and their supporters.

Davidson’s conduct during the 1993 murder investigation was heavily criticised by the Macpherson inquiry. He controlled much of the flow of information as head of the “outside team”. But Macpherson’s 1999 report found no evidence the officer had acted corruptly and said: “We are not convinced DS Davidson positively tried to thwart the investigation.”

Davidson denies claims that he was paid by Norris. He left the Met in 1998 for medical reasons and ran a bar in Spain called the Smugglers.

Davidson was accused by a former detective colleague in south-east London of being corrupt. That colleague, who will be central to the new investigation, is Neil Putnam, a self-confessed corrupt detective turned supergrass.

In a 2002 Guardian interview, Putnam claimed Davidson told him he was in the pay of Norris. Putnam claimed Davidson told him: “‘Old man Norris’ ... ‘had been putting some work our way’.”

The IPCC dismissed a claim from Putnam that he told the Met in 1998 that Davidson had admitted knowing Norris, and the force had covered it up. It found no evidence of a link between Davidson and Norris, nor of any corruption in the first Lawrence murder investigation.

Davidson and Putnam were part of the “groovy gang”, serving as detectives based at the East Dulwich office of the now disbanded south-east regional crime squad (Sercs).

Detectives who have investigated the case believe five or six youths may have taken part in the attack that killed Lawrence. In 2012 Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.