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Policing 'damaged' after Stephen Lawrence report
Home Secretary Theresa May: "Only a public inquiry will be able to get at the full truth"
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A report found a Metropolitan Police officer spied on the Lawrence family, and it did not rule out that corruption may have compromised the investigation.
Mrs May said some undercover operations could have led to wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice.
She also announced a judge-led public inquiry into undercover policing.
Stephen Lawrence, who was 18, was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack by a gang of white youths in Eltham, south-east London, in April 1993.
'Still deplorable'
Mrs May addressed the House of Commons on the findings in the report by Mark Ellison QC.
She said the actions of undercover officers - such as failing to reveal their true identities to court or correct evidence they knew was wrong - meant there was "real potential for miscarriages of justice".
"Policing stands damaged today. Trust and confidence in the Metropolitan Police and policing more generally is vital," she said.
"A public inquiry and the other work I have set out are part of the process of repairing the damage.
"Stephen Lawrence was murdered over 20 years ago and it is still deplorable that his family have had to wait so many years for the truth to emerge."
Doreen Lawrence: "Clearly, we weren't the problem - the Met was the problem"
Mrs May said she had commissioned Mr Ellison, and the Crown Prosecution Service and attorney general, to conduct a further review into cases involving Scotland Yard's undercover Special Demonstrations Squad (SDS).
She said: "In particular, Ellison says there is an inevitable potential for SDS officers to have been viewed by those they infiltrated as encouraging, and participating in, criminal behaviour. We must therefore establish if there have been miscarriages of justice."
Labour former home secretary Jack Straw responded: "I have to say to you in the 35 years I've been in this House, this is one of the most shocking and serious statements I've heard by any minister from any party."
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: "Twenty-one years later no one should underestimate the gravity of the institutional failure two decades ago but also the continued institutional failure to get to the truth and the seriousness of this."
Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted: "Like the Home Secretary, I find the conclusions of the Stephen Lawrence review profoundly shocking. It's important we have a full inquiry."
Mrs May said:
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The Special Demonstration Service (SDS)
Stephen's father Neville Lawrence said the report's findings were "21 years overdue".
Mr Ellison's report said that in 1993, at the cost of "millions of pounds", the then Met Commissioner Paul Condon authorised a "top secret anti-corruption intelligence initiative" called Operation Othona.
It operated "fully outside" the Met, gathering intelligence by "various sensitive and covert means" from 1994 to 1998.
The report said the Met "has been unable to locate" the Operation Othona intelligence that existed by 1998, with the exception of a hard drive created in 2001 and found in a cardboard box in 2013 at the Met's Directorate of Professional Standards.
"We have very recently been informed that in 2003 there was 'mass shredding' of the surviving hard copy reports generated by Operation Othona," the report added.
It said the "chaotic state" of Met Police records meant a public inquiry might have "limited" potential to find out more information.
The undercover officer in question, who has not been named in Mr Ellison's report, was deployed by the SDS.
Neville Lawrence: "You shouldn't have to go through something like this twice"
The squad, which operated until 2006, deployed officers into activist groups which then sought to attach themselves to the Lawrence family campaign for justice over the killing.
Mr Ellison said: "The mere presence of an undercover Metropolitan Police officer in the wider Lawrence family camp in such circumstances is highly questionable in terms of the appearance it creates of the MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] having a spy in the family's camp."
The Ellison report also found:
Home Secretary Theresa May: "Only a public inquiry will be able to get at the full truth"
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories
- Stephen Lawrence murder: Timeline
- Undercover police: What have we learned?
- Two police scandals in Lawrence case
A report found a Metropolitan Police officer spied on the Lawrence family, and it did not rule out that corruption may have compromised the investigation.
Mrs May said some undercover operations could have led to wrongful convictions and miscarriages of justice.
She also announced a judge-led public inquiry into undercover policing.
Stephen Lawrence, who was 18, was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack by a gang of white youths in Eltham, south-east London, in April 1993.
'Still deplorable'
Mrs May addressed the House of Commons on the findings in the report by Mark Ellison QC.
She said the actions of undercover officers - such as failing to reveal their true identities to court or correct evidence they knew was wrong - meant there was "real potential for miscarriages of justice".
"Policing stands damaged today. Trust and confidence in the Metropolitan Police and policing more generally is vital," she said.
"A public inquiry and the other work I have set out are part of the process of repairing the damage.
"Stephen Lawrence was murdered over 20 years ago and it is still deplorable that his family have had to wait so many years for the truth to emerge."
Doreen Lawrence: "Clearly, we weren't the problem - the Met was the problem"
Mrs May said she had commissioned Mr Ellison, and the Crown Prosecution Service and attorney general, to conduct a further review into cases involving Scotland Yard's undercover Special Demonstrations Squad (SDS).
She said: "In particular, Ellison says there is an inevitable potential for SDS officers to have been viewed by those they infiltrated as encouraging, and participating in, criminal behaviour. We must therefore establish if there have been miscarriages of justice."
Labour former home secretary Jack Straw responded: "I have to say to you in the 35 years I've been in this House, this is one of the most shocking and serious statements I've heard by any minister from any party."
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said: "Twenty-one years later no one should underestimate the gravity of the institutional failure two decades ago but also the continued institutional failure to get to the truth and the seriousness of this."
Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted: "Like the Home Secretary, I find the conclusions of the Stephen Lawrence review profoundly shocking. It's important we have a full inquiry."
Mrs May said:
- A new criminal offence of police corruption would replace the current "outdated" misconduct in public office
- She had asked Chief Inspector of Constabulary Tom Winsor to look at the anti-corruption capabilities of police forces, including professional standards departments
- There would be a "forensic external review" of the exact role the Home Office played in relation to the SDS
- She had asked the director of the National Crime Agency to look at how to investigate the allegations in Mr Ellison's findings
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The Special Demonstration Service (SDS)
- The SDS was a top secret squad within the Metropolitan Police Special Branch, and was operational from 1968 - in the wake of violent anti-Vietnam War demonstrations - to 2006
- It specialised in the long-term undercover deployment of officers into a range of groups that had the potential to cause serious public disorder or other violence or injury
- Officers who carried out undercover work for the SDS were given a lifetime guarantee by the Met that their identity would be protected
- In his report, Mark Ellison QC said there were many examples of SDS undercover officers running great risks to themselves in order to gain very valuable intelligence
- The group searched gravestones for the names of young children who would have been a similar age to provide an under cover identity
- The group reportedly became known as "the hairies" because of the long hair and beards considered essential to blend in with some of the the groups being targeted
Stephen's father Neville Lawrence said the report's findings were "21 years overdue".
Mr Ellison's report said that in 1993, at the cost of "millions of pounds", the then Met Commissioner Paul Condon authorised a "top secret anti-corruption intelligence initiative" called Operation Othona.
It operated "fully outside" the Met, gathering intelligence by "various sensitive and covert means" from 1994 to 1998.
The report said the Met "has been unable to locate" the Operation Othona intelligence that existed by 1998, with the exception of a hard drive created in 2001 and found in a cardboard box in 2013 at the Met's Directorate of Professional Standards.
"We have very recently been informed that in 2003 there was 'mass shredding' of the surviving hard copy reports generated by Operation Othona," the report added.
It said the "chaotic state" of Met Police records meant a public inquiry might have "limited" potential to find out more information.
The undercover officer in question, who has not been named in Mr Ellison's report, was deployed by the SDS.
Neville Lawrence: "You shouldn't have to go through something like this twice"
The squad, which operated until 2006, deployed officers into activist groups which then sought to attach themselves to the Lawrence family campaign for justice over the killing.
Mr Ellison said: "The mere presence of an undercover Metropolitan Police officer in the wider Lawrence family camp in such circumstances is highly questionable in terms of the appearance it creates of the MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] having a spy in the family's camp."
The Ellison report also found:
- Evidence of corruption by Det Sgt John Davidson, one of the officers who investigated the Stephen Lawrence murder. The report said this evidence "should have been revealed" to the 1998 Macpherson Inquiry
- No evidence of corruption by other officers - but suggested there "are still some potential lines of enquiry that may be capable of providing such evidence"
- Some "material evidence relating to the issue of corruption" could not be located by the Met. The report added: "It is clear that there are significant areas where relevant Metropolitan Police records should exist but cannot be found."
- A 2012 review by the Met was "another example" of the force "providing misleading reassurance to the family and to the public". The Met claimed it found "nothing new" - but it actually "held material of some potential importance"
