UK Official Orders Review of Police Who Spied on Stephen Lawrence's Family
Twenty years after Stephen Lawrence, 18, was stabbed to death in a racist attack while waiting at a bus stop in London, the British government has opened a new review of undercover police activity related to Lawrence's murder investigation.
British politician Theresa May announced the new public inquiry on Thursday after a recent review of alleged police corruption found that undercover officers spied on Lawrence's family. The spies gathered personal evidence about his parents, Doreen and Neville Lawrence, during the time they were campaigning for the U.K. police to properly investigate their son's murder.
Gary Dobson, 36, and David Norris, 35, were convicted in 2012 of the 1993 murder after analysis of new forensic evidence revived the widely known cold case.
The Guardian reports:
May also went beyond the Lawrence case to announce a review of successful prosecutions where investigations involved undercover officers. It came after Ellison voiced considerable concern at the wider problems caused by the blanket of secrecy shrouding undercover police operations and demanded the review, which he will now lead.
He said he wanted to revisit prosecutions "to assess if material non-disclosure [of the role of SDS officers] may have occurred in any case in which there has been a conviction."
Hours later, it emerged in the afternoon that prosecutors are deliberating whether to charge three police officers over sexual relationships they formed while undercover.
Read full story here.
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(Photo: Coutesy Stephen Lawrence Family)