London's top counter-terrorism police officer has been removed from his post after he was implicated in a report that concluded the force spied on the family of a murdered teenager.

The Metropolitan Police said on Friday that Richard Walton had been transferred following publication of a report on the killing of Stephen Lawrence, who was fatally stabbed in a racist attack in 1993.

No one was convicted of the murder for almost 20 years.

The report, which has exposed police racism and incompetence, found that an undercover policeman spied on Lawrence's relatives during a public inquiry into the force's botched handing of the case.

Walton was one of the police officers making submissions to the inquiry, and met with the undercover officer while it was underway.

Lawrence was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack by a gang of white youths at a London bus stop on April 22, 1993.

Five suspects were arrested within days, but stprosecutors concluded that there was insufficient evidence to progress with murder charges for any of them.

Two of the men, Gary Dobson and David Norris, were convicted in January 2012 on the basis of new forensic evidence and sent to jail for a minimum of 15 and 14 years respectively.