Detectives accused of bungling first Stephen Lawrence inquiry will not face charges

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Four senior detectives accused of bungling the first Stephen Lawrence murder investigation will not face criminal charges, prosecutors have decided.

The Crown Prosecution Service had been considering whether the errors made in the weeks after the 18-year-old was murdered were so serious that they amounted to the criminal offence of misconduct in public office.

The Lawrence family and Duwayne Brooks, who survived the attack by a racist gang that killed Stephen in 1993, were told of the decision on Thursday morning by the CPS.

The four detectives have all retired and were in charge of the inquiry, which was heavily criticised by the Macpherson report.

Errors made meant that despite the suspects being named by local people, they remained free.

Lawrence, 18, was stabbed to death by a racist gang of at least five white youths in south-east London on 22 April 1993. It took 19 years for two members of the gang of five or six youths to be convicted of his murder, and a public inquiry found a string of errors by police.

The decision to refer the case to prosecutors follows a criminal investigation conducted by the National Crime Agency.

The investigation began in 2014, and looked into claims Lawrence’s killers were shielded by corruption. But in 2018 it also began examining why officers in charge of the first police investigation into Lawrence’s murder did not make arrests for two weeks after the killing, despite police repeatedly being given the names of suspects.

The decision by the CPS on Thursday means that in total, nine years of investigations ordered by then home secretary, Theresa May, with millions of pounds spent, has not led to a single charge.

The Lawrence family suspect corrupt officers blighted the hunt for their son’s killers, as have some in the Met who have investigated case, though officially the force insists there is no evidence of corruption.

The four former senior officers told they will not face prosecution have always denied any wrongdoing.

They are Det Supt Ian Crampton, who was in charge for the first three days after the murder; Det Supt Brian Weeden, who took over as senior investigating officer; Det Ch Supt William Ilsley, who oversaw them; and DI Ben Bullock, the deputy senior investigating officer.

The Macpherson inquiry into how police failed to catch Lawrence’s murderers was critical of all four men in its 1999 report, and of the Metropolitan police in general.

Macpherson’s report said: “There is no doubt but that there were fundamental errors. The investigation was marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers.”

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In 2012, two men, Gary Dobson and David Norris, were convicted of the murder. Newspapers claims about corruption led May to order an inquiry that was conducted by a senior barrister.

It recommended a new criminal inquiry into corruption claims, which was carried out by the NCA and supervised by the IOPC, which began in 2015. No charges have been brought against any former officer for alleged corruption.

On Wednesday the Met commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, said efforts to hunt down the remaining Lawrence murder suspects may have been irreparably damaged by the errors made in the first weeks after the killing.

Rowley said: “The sad truth is that if you do such a bad job at an investigation in its first weeks and months, you lose evidence … some of it can never be recovered. You miss forensic opportunities. You miss witness opportunities and witnesses’ memories degrade.

“I don’t want to pretend that you can necessarily always catch up the ground that you’ve so badly lost in the early days. That’s what makes it so egregious, and makes the error so egregious, that they’re not repairable always.”

The criminal offence of misconduct in public office “is committed when the office holder acts (or fails to act) in a way that constitutes a breach of the duties of that office”, according to guidance from the CPS.