Best pal ready to break 25-year silence
BY MATTHEW YOUNG THE main witness to Stephen Lawrence’s murder wants to open up to his best friend’s parents after a 25-year silence.
Duwayne Brooks, now 43, has never spoken to Doreen or Neville Lawrence about the fateful night he and Stephen were attacked by racist thugs in south-east London.
Racked with trauma after witnessing the brutal knife murder, and having suffered post-traumatic stress disorder for years as a result of the way he was mistreated by police, Duwayne didn’t know how to face Doreen, 65, and Neville, 76.
Doreen and Duwayne have had public spats over the years. It was claimed in a BBC documentary this week that she never forgave him for what happened to her boy.
But on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the crime that shook Britain, he wants to put aside their long-standing differences.
Duwayne told our sister paper the Mirror: “To sit down with your best friend’s parents and say, ‘This is what they did to him’, it’s difficult.
“Both parents know what happened but to sit there and say, ‘I was unable to help him – to save him, to stop it’, how do you say that to someone’s parents?”
He added: “The conversation with them has to happen… and I think we will have that discussion very soon.
“I would not want anything to happen to Mr Lawrence, with him being older, before I have that conversation with him. I just feel it’s quite urgent for me to have that conversation with them.”
Duwayne said he tries not to dwell on the horror that unfolded on April 22, 1993, when he and his 18-year-old friend were attacked by a group of white racists for no other reason than being black.
Instead, he remembers the happy times with Stephen, who he met at school when they were 11.
He said: “All I think about is the good times that we had as friends, the great times we spent together.”
But he also ponders “what could have been if things had been different”.
Duwayne said: “He would have probably had a family by now and he’d be living his life – and we’d be reminiscing about what we did at school.”
He also realises the huge impact the murder had on his own life.
Duwayne, who is a mayoral candidate for Lewisham in next month’s local elections, said: “Would I be a politician or be part of the biggest change in my lifetime in policing, the public’s view on racism and the impact the public inquiry had on public bodies?
“It’s been with me for all my adult life, in every aspect of what took place. It’s shaped my whole life.”