Doreen Lawrence tells of disbelief at claim police looked to ‘smear’ family

Evening Standard

The mother of Stephen Lawrence has spoken of her disbelief at claims that undercover officers were tasked with finding information to “smear” and “destroy” her family.Baroness Doreen Lawrence told the public inquiry into undercover policing on Thursday she had only wanted to be treated the same as any other family by police.Her son Stephen was murdered by a racist gang of five or six attackers in south-east London in April 1993, only two of whom have been ever been brought to justice.

Transcript

00:00Well, definitely, I think that sometimes the amount of information I receive from members

00:13of the public of how they felt, how they've been treated, and I would definitely believe

00:21that's true, I would definitely, because there are times that we have no say in how we are

00:27treated. We have, as if you say, we have no rights to expect much better treatment, and

00:35even to be treated like everybody else. I think all the time during Stephen's investigation,

00:41all I wanted was to be treated the same. I wasn't looking for special treatment. Somebody

00:47had died. It is your job to investigate that murder, and that's all I was asking for, nothing

00:53else. And so to spend their time looking to smear and to find things to destroy us as a

01:01family, as I say, it's hard to believe that people go to that extreme.

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