Inquiry would focus on the conduct of officers in charge of the first investigation into the teenager’s murder

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The National Crime Agency is considering starting a new criminal inquiry into the Stephen Lawrence case, potentially placing four former detectives under criminal investigation for the offence of misconduct in public office.

It is understood that the inquiry would focus on why officers in charge of the first Metropolitan police investigation into Lawrence’s murder 25 years ago did not make arrests for two weeks, despite police repeatedly being given the names of suspects.



Lawrence, 18, was stabbed to death by a racist gang of at least five white youths on 22 April 1993. It took 19 years for two of the gang to be convicted of his murder.



Those who may face the new inquiry, 25 years after the Met’s much-criticised decisions in the first fortnight after the murder, are the senior management team in the first Lawrence murder investigation. They have retired from policing and have always denied any wrongdoing.



Timeline The fight for justice for Stephen Lawrence Show Hide Stephen Lawrence is stabbed to death in an unprovoked racist attack by a gang of white youths as he waits at a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London, with his best friend Duwayne Brooks.

Neil Acourt, Jamie Acourt, Gary Dobson, Luke Knight and David Norris are arrested in connection with his murder. Committal proceedings are scheduled for Neil Acourt and Mr Knight but the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) formally discontinues the prosecution following a meeting with the senior investigating officer.

After the CPS says new evidence is insufficient to support murder charges, the Lawrence family begins a private prosecution against Neil Acourt, Mr Knight and Dobson. The private prosecution against Neil Acourt, Mr Knight and Dobson begins at the Old Bailey but collapses after identification evidence is ruled inadmissible. The three are acquitted. An inquest jury finds that Stephen was "unlawfully killed by five white youths".

The Macpherson report finds the police guilty of mistakes and "institutional racism" and makes a series of recommendations on changes to policing and wider public policy.

The CPS announces there is "insufficient evidence" to prosecute anyone for the murder.

The double jeopardy legal principle, preventing suspects being tried twice for the same crime, is scrapped for certain offences when there is new evidence. The Court of Appeal agrees that Dobson's 1996 acquittal for the murder can be quashed in the face of new forensic evidence. It can then be reported for the first time that Dobson and Norris will face trial.

Dobson and Norris are found guilty of his murder. The National Crime Agency announces that the Metropolitan Police are being investigated for alleged corruption over their initial handling of the murder probe. The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) finds that former police boss Richard Walton, who controversially met an undercover officer during the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, would have faced disciplinary proceedings if he had not been allowed to retire. It was alleged that Mr Walton "obtained information pertaining to the Lawrence family and their supporters, potentially undermining the inquiry and public confidence". Scotland Yard announces it has received "significant information" after a fresh appeal. Detectives were attempting to identify a woman whose DNA was on a bag strap found at the murder scene and a separate possible witness. Scotland Yard admits it has no new lines of inquiry in the investigation into Stephen Lawrence's murder.

They are Det Supt Ian Crampton, in charge for the first three days after the murder; Det Supt Brian Weeden, who took over as senior investigating officer; Det Ch Supt William Ilsley, who oversaw them; and DI Ben Bullock, who was the deputy senior investigating officer.



If the NCA proceeds, it will consider interviewing the former officers under criminal caution. For the past two years, the NCA has been investigating whether the suspects were shielded as a result of corruption and who in the police may have been involved.

Stephen Lawrence murder: police say they have run out of leads Read more

The NCA does not believe it has evidence to suggest the four officers acted corruptly and nor are they suspects for that.

The Lawrence murder suspects were arrested a fortnight after the racist murder and only after Nelson Mandela met Lawrence’s parents during a trip to London and embarrassed the Met.



The criminal offence of misconduct in public office “is committed when the office holder acts (or fails to act) in a way that constitutes a breach of the duties of that office”, according to guidance from the Crown Prosecution Service.



Questioning under caution gives investigators certain powers, but is also meant as a protection for those facing suspicion. It does not imply guilt.

The public inquiry into how police failed to catch Stephen’s murderers, chaired by Sir William Macpherson, was critical of all four men in its 1999 report, and of the Metropolitan police in general.

Macpherson’s report said: “There is no doubt but that there were fundamental errors. The investigation was marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers.”



Macpherson said of Crampton, the first senior investigating officer for the first three days after the murder: “A vital and fundamental mistake was made in failing to arrest the suspects named in that information by the morning of 26 April. Enough information was available to make the arrests by the evening of 24 April, at about the time when Mr Crampton says that he made a ‘strategical’ decision not to arrest.”



Macpherson said of Weeden, who took over as senior investigating officer from Crampton: “He did not exercise his own critical faculties in order to test whether the right decisions had been made. He was confused as to his power of arrest. His fundamental misjudgment delayed arrests until 7 May, at which time the arrests were made because of outside pressures.”

Macpherson said of Bullock, the deputy senior investigating officer: “The major responsibility for the team’s failures lie with those who supervised Mr Bullock, but as DIO he bears his share of responsibility for the team’s failures.”

The Met may close the Stephen Lawrence case, but it had better not forget it | Hugh Muir Read more

Ilsley was also criticised in the public inquiry’s report: “Mr Ilsley allowed himself to go along with the weak and unenterprising decisions made by his SIOs, in which he had been himself directly involved. … He failed to supervise and to manage effectively this highly sensitive murder investigation.”



In a BBC documentary marking the 25th anniversary of the Lawrence murder, to be broadcast this week, Crampton defends his decision making in the first murder investigation, saying: “I was made aware that there were phone calls coming in, naming people but not saying how they knew. Many of the calls were of a similar nature, as if a rumour’s going round and people are phoning in the rumour they’ve heard.



“At no stage at that point had we got any actual evidence ... information isn’t evidence, there is a distinct difference.

“The strategy was not to arrest – they were juveniles. You had to handle juveniles very carefully, obviously – to get them in to simply release them wasn’t really making a lot of sense.”

In a 1999 BBC interview, Ilsley also rejected the criticism: ”We’ve been made scapegoats. The key issue was the issue of early arrests. There is nothing at all in this investigation that has shown me that if we had done anything differently, we would have got a good result.”



The NCA is working on behalf of the Independent Office of Police Conduct. It declined to talk about the inquiries into the four senior officers in the first Lawrence murder investigation.



Sarah Green, of the IOPC, said: “We are determined to leave no stone unturned and we remain keen to speak to anyone who feels they might have information to aid our efforts.”

