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News - 21 November 2025

Doreen Lawrence describes systematic police racism at inquiry

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Ed Sykes

@ed_sykes


The long-running and highly problematic Undercover Policing Inquiry had a busier public gallery than usual, as Stephen Lawrence’s mother Doreen Lawrence described police officers’ systematic abuse and racism.

As a statement on behalf of Lawrence’s father Neville previously summed up perfectly:

While the Lawrences sought justice, state power turned on the family.

Doreen Lawrence: police racism, shocking failures, and self-protection

Indeed, the British establishment didn’t just undermine hopes for progress by sending a “rape gang” of racist cops to spy on hundreds of left-wing groups for decades on behalf of the rich and powerful. It also wasted time and resources monitoring the grieving family of Stephen Lawrence (who it admitted had “no political connections or persuasions”) rather than working on finding his killers. And its priority was protecting itself rather than actually helping, as Doreen Lawrence laid out:

The police’s behaviour, and the experience of Lawrence’s family, was despicable.

At the heart of it all, meanwhile, was a thoroughly racist attitude within the police.

Stephen Lawrence’s mother speaks to the inquiry

Doreen Lawrence spoke to the inquiry on 10 November. And she revealed that:

  • Because of the police’s failures and the long struggle for justice, the family simply didn’t get the chance to grieve.
  • The only thing she was naive about was in her hope that the police would actually investigate the murder properly.
  • The police seemed more interested in discrediting those close to Stephen and more worried about the response to his murder than the murder itself, but that speaking out was essential in actually getting the police to act.
  • Police may have avoided being racist to her face, but “were always dismissive of what she had to say”.
  • Despite police claiming “all intelligence is good intelligence”, the reporting on the relationship between Stephen’s parents was completely inappropriate. And it even felt like officers were ‘pitting them against each other‘.

The state is no better today

One key failure of the inquiry relating to the spying on Stephen Lawrence’s family is its refusal to force the attendance of key witness Dave Hagan:

And this is just part of how the establishment protects itself, in a way that continues to this day.

Many have pointed out, for example, that the situation isn’t much better now, with a government intent on ignoring its responsibilities under international law in order to support and protect a genocidal ally, and wasting massive police resources on suppressing non-violent protest instead.

Stephen Lawrence’s family didn’t deserve the treatment that the police subjected them to, as Doreen Lawrence described, and nor did hundreds of other groups undercover police spied on. To ensure this behaviour truly stops, we don’t just need to learn the lessons of the spycops scandal. We also need to put as much pressure on the government as possible to ensure the people spycops abused receive the justice they deserve. And we mustn’t stop until that justice comes.

Featured image via the Canary





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