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Police wasted time spying on Stephen Lawrence family, who say ‘history’s repeating itself’

The racist murder of Stephen Lawrence and the state’s horrendous response to it highlighted the institutional racism of the Metropolitan Police (the Met). And as people close to Lawrence now address how police officers wasted time spying on them, his mother has warned that ‘history’s repeating itself‘.

“State power turned on the family”

BBC Panorama recently exposed the ongoing culture of racism and misogyny at the Met, which other reports suggest may be worsening. And, Lawrence’s father Neville responded by noting that the “sickness” on the force at the time of Stephen’s murder continues today.

Now, he and others are participating in the latest sessions of the long-running and problematic Undercover Policing Inquiry. This is in relation to the political policing that unjustifiably targeted hundreds of left-wing groups for decades. And because racism and misogyny was at the core of this Spycops scandal, undercover officers even spied on people with “no political connections or persuasions” like the Lawrence family.

At the inquiry this week, an opening statement on Neville’s behalf noted that:

Surveillance started almost at once, the day after the murder…

While the Lawrences sought justice, state power turned on the family.

Instead of focusing resources “on finding Stephen’s killers”, the Met, with characteristic racism, dismissed the family’s campaign for justice, ‘perversely’ and ‘offensively’ treating the family’s grief “as a threat”. The spying “continued for years”, but there was ‘no compelling case‘ for that to happen. Nonetheless, the undercover unit treated it as a “number one priority“.

On the night of Stephen’s murder, his friend Duwayne Brooks was with him. And a statement on his behalf said the Met’s priorities had been “profoundly disturbing”. A whistleblower has said “spycops manager HN86 was overtly racist” and wanted to undermine campaigns for justice in the Black community. The statement for Brooks suggested:

If the police, including the undercover police, had effectively policed the far-right and racist criminal groups, instead of persecuting and criminalising the victims of racist violence, then perhaps some of the racist attacks, including some of the racist murders, that plagued our communities during the 1980s and 1990s, could have been prevented

Stephen’s mother Doreen feels the same way. And she also highlighted that the situation has not changed:

Racist police protecting themselves and the state

A new review into police investigations surrounding Stephen’s murder is currently underway, following a number of damning BBC reports. Doreen has called it the “last opportunity” for justice, and implores witnesses to come forward.

Last year, in a telling moment in response to a question about the Lawrence case, former spycop Trevor Morris slipped up and said:

We’re about gathering intelligence, not smearing individuals. That’s a security service job. Let them do that.

He quickly backtracked.

Speaking to the Canary, Madoc Roberts from documentary The Spies Who Ruined Our Lives, noted that:

In our film, Peter Francis, an undercover police officer turned whistle-blower, clearly states that they were infiltrating family justice campaigns in order to try and smear the families. The most notorious being the Stephen Lawrence campaign. The only reason to do this is to stop criticism of the police corruption.

The film editor added:

The whole thing was political policing which we rightly criticise in other countries but our establishment tries to cover it up.

Tom Fowler, who goes to every hearing of the inquiry, told us last year about this impact the spying on progressives has had in Britain. He said:

When you kind of combine that with the fact that they weren’t doing this to the far right, is it any wonder that we now live in an incredibly right-wing country, with the huge influence the far right has over the discourse, setting the agenda of British politics day in, day out? The BBC is so incredibly biased towards the likes of Farage and so forth, whereas… there’s such little legacy of the huge history of left-wing politics that Britain has that has any influence on mainstream society. We have so few long-term left-wing institutions, because they’re undermined and destroyed…

Exposing the truth is just the first step

As the right’s hostile takeover of the Labour Party has shown in recent years, the battle to undermine movements seeking progressive change continues today. The state keeps using its power to suppress campaigns for justice. And members of the police force and armed forces are still more right-wing than the general population.

Justice has not yet come for Stephen Lawrence and his family, or for the many others that the state’s political policing unjustifiably targeted. But exposing this scandalous behaviour is an important first step in ensuring those with power don’t get away with their crimes without a fight. It also opens our eyes better to the challenges we face in taking power away from these forces and placing it, instead, in the hands of ordinary people.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

This post was originally published on Canary.