Black people still treated as second-class citizens, says Stephen Lawrence’s father

Dr Neville Lawrence said he believes the police are still 'institutionally racist' 27 years after his son's killing.

Black people are still treated as second-class citizens in Britain, Stephen Lawrence’s father has said 27 years after his son was killed by a racist gang.

Dr Neville Lawrence has thrown his support behind Black Lives Matter protests sweeping across the UK and the world calling for an end to systematic racism, following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25. Dr Lawrence said that Boris Johnson’s government is not doing enough to combat inequality and injustice, and suggested the prime minister himself holds racist views, adding that he has ‘not seen anything that convinced’ him otherwise.

Dr Lawrence told The Guardian that he was ‘pleased’ so many have supported the global demonstrations, which he described as necessary because black people are still being treated as second-class citizens ‘not only in this country but all over the world’. However, he insisted that protests should be peaceful and that those attacking police officers should be arrested.

Almost three decades after his 18-year-old son Stephen was killed by a gang of white youths in south-east London in 1993, Dr Lawrence believes British police are still ‘institutionally racist’.

The original police investigation into Stephen’s death was found to be hampered by prejudice, incompetence and alleged corruption, and the subsequent 1999 Macpherson Report into his case concluded the police were guilty of ‘institutional racism’.

Met Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick last year declared this was no longer true, saying ‘this is an utterly different Metropolitan Police.’

But Dr Lawrence said he believes promises of police reform following the Macpherson Report – which was called ‘one of the most important moments in the modern history of criminal justice in Britain’ – have not been kept.

He told the paper: ‘It was not done in quick time, it’s not been done, I don’t know when it will be done – we should not be talking about it 21 years later. They have fallen way, way short. Twenty-one years short.’

Dr Lawrence added he ‘totally’ disagreed with Dame Cressida’s comments, citing 2019 figures showing the Met stopped and searched more black people than white – despite black people comprising just 12 per cent of London’s population and white people 59 per cent.

The father said that he himself had been stopped and searched, along with his black family liaison officer who was off-duty at the time.

‘I had to laugh,’ Dr Lawrence said. ‘It’s just a way to pounce on people, it’s an excuse, it’s not a reasonable excuse to stop people.’

He also supported renewed calls to pull down statues across the UK of colonialists and slave owners.

Dr Lawrence said the government should have had the ‘decency’ long ago to realise why such monuments cause deep offence and removed them.

Since his son’s death, Dr Lawrence and his wife Lady Doreen Lawrence and their two children, have committed their lives to fighting against racial inequalities in Britain.

Despite their tireless efforts, Dr Lawrence said the family will never forget the pain of losing Stephen. The father added that whenever he hears songs he and his son would listen to together, it takes him back to fond memories they shared.

He said: ‘I can’t forget because it’s my life, this I have been going through for 27 years. We are all still feeling pain’.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.