The father of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence says Scotland Yard still has to prove it is no longer institutionally racist before it can be free of the label imposed by the inquiry into his son’s death.
Dr Neville Lawrence said black youths in London were still being targeted unfairly by police and there was little progress in the promotion of ethnic minority officers into senior ranks.
Speaking at a conference at the London Metropolitan University with the title “The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry 20 years on. What have we learnt? What still needs to be done?”, he said: “The name that they were given, institutionally racist, as far as I am concerned, still remains. They will have to work very hard to get rid of that name.”
Stephen was murdered by a racist gang in Eltham in 1993. Dr Lawrence said in the 10 years after the 1999 Macpherson report into failings in the police investigation “everything was being done” to implement its recommendations and change policing culture.
However, in the past 10 years a Home Office steering group set up to monitor the changes had been abolished and he said that “a lot of the recommendations have not been implemented and it is as if things have gone backwards.”
Dr Lawrence added: “They have to get to the stage where people can see that they are no longer institutionally racist, in order to get rid of that name they have to progress.”
He said: “There continues to be very little progress in promotion of black, Asian and minority ethnic police officers into the senior ranks and there is a huge disproportionality problem of misconduct and discipline for BAME officers.”
Also speaking at the conference, Met Commissioner Cressida Dick said the force was more accountable, better governed and more diverse as a result of the Macpherson report. She said there was still a gap between police and communities but reducing that gap was one of her highest priorities.
In a statement the Met said that disciplinary processes were “in no way” influenced by an officer’s ethnicity.
