STEPHEN’S MOTHER: IT’S TIME TO MOVE ON

Last Saturday April 22, 1993: Stephen is stabbed to death in an unprovoked racist attack in Eltham, SouthEast London. Within days Neil and Jamie Acourt, Gary Dobson, Luke Knight and David Norris are identified as prime suspects. July 1993: Prosecutors drop a case against Neil Acourt and Luke Knight. Months later an inquest is halted amid claims of ‘dramatic’ new evidence. April 1996: An Old Bailey private prosecution brought by the Lawrence family against Neil Acourt, Knight and Dobson collapses. February 1997: An inquest jury finds Stephen was ‘unlawfully killed by five white youths’. The next day this newspaper accuses all five men under the front page headline ‘Murderers’. February 1999: The Macpherson report finds police guilty of an appalling catalogue of mistakes and ‘institutional racism’. April 2005: The double jeopardy principle, preventing suspects being tried twice for the same crime, is scrapped for certain offences when there is compelling new evidence. November 2007: Scotland Yard confirms it is investigating new forensic evidence. May 2011: The Court of Appeal agrees Dobson’s 1996 acquittal for the murder can be quashed and he can be put on trial again. January 2012: Dobson and Norris are found guilty of Stephen’s murder. September 2016: Police announce they have received ‘significant information’ after a fresh appeal to identify a woman whose DNA was found on a bag strap left at the murder scene. April 2018: Scotland Yard admits it has no new lines of inquiry in the investigation into Stephen’s murder and is preparing to shelve it.