The police watchdog has said Lord Stevens is not the only senior police officer being investigated as part of an inquiry into whether there was a failure to hand over information to the 1998 Stephen Lawrence public inquiry.
The Independent Police Complaints Commission said it was investigating whether there had been “full, frank and truthful” disclosure of information to the inquiry and that its inquiries included, but were not limited to, Stevens.
In a statement outlining the investigation, the IPCC said it centred on a letter sent to the inquiry, chaired by Sir William Macpherson, dated 12 June 1998. The letter was sent in response to a request from the inquiry, prompted by a Guardian story, as to whether officers involved in the Lawrence case were being investigated for corruption.
The IPCC said: “Lord Stevens was the deputy commissioner of the MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] at the time of the inquiry and provided information, in the form of two letters from his office, to the inquiry regarding anti-corruption intelligence and ongoing enquiries.
“The Stephen Lawrence independent review, conducted by Mark Ellison QC, found no evidence that anti-corruption intelligence which involved an officer who worked on the original Stephen Lawrence murder investigation, was provided to the inquiry by the MPS.”
The Ellison review, when it reported in 2014, said one former detective, John Davidson, was suspected of corruption in the Lawrence case, in which he had had a key role. He was the target of an investigation in 1998 while the Macpherson inquiry was sitting. Davidson has always denied the claims.
The IPCC confirmed last month that it was investigating Stevens following a referral from the Met. At the time, Stevens told Channel 4 that the Ellison inquiry had assured him there was no suggestion that he “did anything that was culpable in any way”. He told the programme: “Step very carefully, I’m not putting up with any more crap about this.”
The IPCC said its inquiry, which is in its early stages, would also look at why no further responses were provided after a letter from Stevens’s office dated 11 September 1998, despite the fact Macpherson had asked to be updated with any further developments in relevant anti-corruption inquiries.
Lawrence’s father, Neville Lawrence, made a complaint in October about Stevens’s office in October, which prompted the Met’s referral to the IPCC. No other officer was named in the complaint.
