| The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry | |||
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR THE POLICE COMPLAINTS AUTHORITY 44.1 After the Inquest Mr & Mrs Lawrence made a formal complaint against the MPS. Mr Khan says that he wrote to the Commissioner on 13 February 1997 a letter which ended, "Please accept this letter as registration of the formal complaint." An unsigned copy of the letter appears in Mr Khan's file. That letter may not have been posted at once, but the Kent Police Report indicates that their inquiry on behalf of the PCA began on 20 March 1997. 44.2 For some months there was no direct input from Mr & Mrs Lawrence or Mr Khan. The PCA agreed terms of reference for its inquiry relying upon comments made publicly by Mr & Mrs Lawrence, and upon Mrs Lawrence's statements made at the Inquest. Transcripts of the Inquest proceedings were available which to some extent foreshadowed the complaints about the MPS investigation of the murder. 44.3 On 29 September 1997 Mr & Mrs Lawrence and Mr Khan did give positive support to the Kent inquiry. On 9 October 1997 Mr Lawrence made a statement to Kent, setting out in short form the nature of his complaints. Much of that statement dealt with the "insensitivity" of the MPS in their dealings with the family. Later Mr Lawrence voiced the opinion that there must have been "collusion" from outside with police officers which led to deliberate slowing down of the investigation in order to favour one or more of the suspects. 44.4 The terms of reference of the PCA were:- "To investigate the MPS' handling of the murder of Stephen Lawrence on 22 April 1993 and any related matters but with specific regard to:-
44.5 A team of Kent officers led by Deputy Chief Constable Robert Ayling investigated the case for some nine months. Many police officers and other witnesses were seen afresh. Long interviews were conducted with 17 officers. Statements were taken from many more officers. We are grateful to the PCA for full co-operation and for full access to all their documents, including the Kent Investigating Officer's Report. Public interest immunity from production can be claimed for such reports. The PCA made no such claim, and for the purposes of our Inquiry the full text of the Report, other than the chapters setting out conclusions and recommendations, was made available to all parties. The short form of the PCA's own Report was placed before Parliament in December 1997: it is reproduced in full in the Appendices to this Report. The Investigating Officer's full report was made available in January 1998 to this Inquiry. 44.6 We say at once that in many respects we agree with the content of the Kent Report, particularly where the text shows plain criticism of decisions made by senior officers, and of the family liaison, and of the conduct of the first investigation of the murder, including the Barker Review. 44.7 We do not agree with the Kent/PCA conclusions as to the actions taken or not taken during the first night, the initial response of the MPS at the scene. Our reasons for our conclusions are set out in full in Chapter 11. 44.8 The PCA inquiry was geared towards an assessment of the work done in professional terms. It investigated the "endeavours and judgment of those responsible for leading the investigation". Perhaps disturbingly the Kent Report in its Preface said this:- "The depth of detailed scrutiny applied in the complaints investigation could have found fault in most police criminal investigations. The reader of this report should bear in mind that the benefit of hindsight and the luxury of having time to assess all of the information that was available to the MPS is bound to reveal errors, omissions and flawed judgement." We have been conscious throughout of the dangers of hindsight. But we hope that such errors and flawed judgment as have been detected by the PCA and by this Inquiry are in fact rare. 44.9 As to racism we must indicate that in our view the approach of the PCA/Kent investigation was incomplete. Many officers were asked directly whether racism had an impact upon their activities in the case. Predictably they replied in strong terms denying such impact. The result was the finding by Kent that, "Kent Police have found no evidence to support the allegation of racist conduct by any MPS officer involved in the investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence." 44.10 This conclusion was preceded by two paragraphs which should be quoted:- 14.25. The inquiry by Kent Police was an investigation into complaints against specific officers and as such could not cover the broader issue of racism and whether or not it existed within the MPS. 14.27 The inquiry nevertheless gave careful consideration to this allegation throughout. Despite what appeared to be genuine personal denials from officers concerned, the inquiry proceeded on the basis that this did not preclude the possibility that the conduct and actions of individual officers may have been unintentionally influenced by inappropriate assumptions or beliefs. 44.11 These paragraphs appear to be inconsistent. But insofar as Paragraph 14.27 suggests that regard was paid to the allegation that institutional racism may have influenced officers in the case, we cannot accept the conclusion set out in Paragraph 9 above that there was "no evidence to support the allegation of racist conduct". No overt racism, other than perhaps the use of inappropriate language, was evident. But the conclusion that there was a "collective failure" to provide an appropriate and professional service to the Lawrence family because of their colour, culture and ethnic origin is in our view inescapable. 44.12 Otherwise we do not propose to comment upon the content of the PCA Report. The report itself and the statements and interviews recorded have been most useful to us. We are grateful to the PCA for its full co-operation in the conduct of our Inquiry. 44.13 There are two further areas of concern. First it must be noted that in the case of at least five officers criticism was made by PCA/Kent which would have led to disciplinary charges, but such charges could not be pursued because the officers had retired. Most of the officers concerned had reached retirement age. This raises the important question as to whether or not the terms of employment or service of officers should allow disciplinary proceedings to be brought after retirement. This matter is dealt with in our Recommendations. 44.14 Secondly we have heard regularly during our Part 2 meetings of disquiet as to the perceived lack of independence of PCA inquiries and procedures. This does not in any way mean that the members of the PCA are personally subject to criticism. But since PCA inquiries, certainly in major cases, are conducted with or through other police forces, the perception is that such investigations of police by police may not be seen to result in independent and fair scrutiny and that justice is not seen to be done by such investigation. 44.15 This matter will be referred to in our Recommendations. We stress however that this general criticism or perception is not aimed at the present Kent inquiry in itself. The investigation was thorough and painstaking and fair. The question is one of principle, and the perception must in any event be addressed. 44.16 We do depart from the PCA/Kent in important respects referred to above. Furthermore if racism was not within the PCA terms of reference it might have been better for Kent not to have addressed the issue. As this Inquiry has abundantly shown the issues involved are subtle, and vitally important to all who wish to live in a decent society. 44.17 One important result of the complaint by Mr & Mrs Lawrence was the uncovering of 11 identified "Lines of Enquiry" which Kent put forward to be followed up by MPS in order to try to advance the Stephen Lawrence murder case. These lines have formed the basis for further MPS activity, but we know of no truly productive results so far. The case is still active, and DAC John Grieve is now in charge of ongoing investigations.
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