The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry/MacPherson Report

THE MACPHERSON REPORT 70 RECOMMENDATIONS

Introduction

Stephen Lawrence met his untimely death at the age of 18 years after being stabbed to death in an attack which was unprovoked in the month of April 1993 . The attack was motivated by racism since it was estimated that six male youths who were white carried out the attack (Campbell 2001 . There has never been any conviction on the brutal attack although three prime suspects went through a private trial but were acquitted due to lack of evidence . These five continue being suspected of committing

br the crime but they can 't be retried in the British law that is present at the moment . An inquiry was carried out by the Kent Police due to the complaints made by Stephen parents that the previous report made by the Metropolitan Police Service was botched (Campbell , 2001

According to Racial for justice (2000 , the Kent report confirmed this and Sir William Macpherson chaired an inquiry into the murder of Stephen on a request by Jack Straw , the Home Secretary . The main aim of the enquiry was to help in identification of the lessons that were learnt in investigating and prosecuting crimes that are motivated by racism (BBC News 2001 . The report showed clearly that the investigation to the murder was highly flawed . From the report it was clear that the police failure was not caused by incompetence but merely out of institutionalized racism . Several witnesses and friends confessed to have been badly treated due to assumptions...