After Stephen’s murder my wife and I never even hugged again
THE heartbroken parents of Stephen Lawrence never touched one another again after their son’s racist murder, his grieving father has said.
Neville Lawrence said he and wife Doreen did not even hug as the horror ripped their marriage apart and caused “27 years of misery and chaos” for the family.
The couple divorced six years after the 18-year-old was killed in an unprovoked gang attack in 1993. Neville, 78, said he and Doreen, now a Labour peer, have not even spoken for five or six years.
He vowed to keep fighting for justice “until my very last breath” after the Met Police announced it was shelving the investigation.
Neville told how he was summoned to a meeting about the case with Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick this week. He was told no
BY AMY-CLARE MARTIN “substantial evidence” could be found to further the case but said: “But you had the information on the night after the murder, and you didn’t use it as you should.”
Furious Neville, OBE, added: “A woman came to our house [soon after the murder] with the names of the killers written on a piece of paper.
When Doreen gave it to the officer in charge he threw it in the bin. So I was thinking, ‘If only you’d done your job properly we wouldn’t be sitting here now’.”
Gary Dobson and David Norris are serving life terms for the murder, having been convicted after a DNA breakthrough in 2012. Dobson, Neil Acourt and Luke Knight had been acquitted in a private prosecution brought by Stephen’s parents in 1996. Neil and brother Jamie Acourt, the fifth suspect, have served jail time for drug dealing.
Dame Cressida denied the Met is institutionally racist.
She said the force has zero tolerance on racism and said an officer was sacked last week for racist conduct.