Police chief backs probe into family smear claims

London Evening Standard/London

Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, said if allegations that officers targeted the Lawrences and Stephen’s friend Duwayne Brooks were true, it was “a disgrace” and unacceptable. He said he would be “content” if the government ordered a public inquiry, but warned the process could be lengthy and inconclusive.

His comments came after Stephen’s father Neville demanded a judge-led inquiry into suggestions of a police smear campaign.

Lawrence dismissed as “completely unsatisfactory” Home Secretary Theresa May’s announcement that the claims would be examined by two existing inquiries.

The smear claims were revealed jointly by The Guardian and a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary on Monday night.

Speaking from his home in Jamaica, Lawrence said he always felt his family was “under greater investigation” than the racist gang that killed Stephen in 1993.

Sir Bernard, speaking on LBC radio, said: “If you do have a public inquiry, it can take a long time and it’s not always conclusive at the end of it. Secondly, if there is more wrongdoing discovered, it still has to come back to the police or to the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission) to investigate and prosecute.”

He insisted he was confident that undercover operations in the Met were running properly now, adding that he had brought in an outside force to review undercover operations when he took over two years ago.

Sir Bernard, who admitted he had not yet had time to see the documentary, accepted it was possible there were rogue teams at the time of the police squad which allegedly targeted the Lawrences.

But he also defended the Special Demonstration Squad, which is at the centre of the claims. He said that over 40 years of their operations they did “some very good things,” adding: “Undercover officers, when they are deployed properly, are targeting serious and organised crime and terrorists.”

There are fresh claims in The Guardian that Met officers infiltrated political groups protesting about police corruption.

One operative in the Nineties was said to have spied on the Colin Roach Centre, named after a 21-year-old black man who died in the foyer of Stoke Newington police station. Another infiltrated groups associated with anti-racist campaigners the Newham Monitoring Project.

The allegations are based on the evidence of former undercover officer Peter Francis, who has said he was told to dig up “dirt” on Neville and Doreen Lawrence after their 18-year-old son was killed by white youths in an unprovoked attack at a bus stop in Eltham.