A leaked report from the Metropolitan police reveals that a senior officer involved in the Stephen Lawrence case was corrupt.
The report, obtained by the BBC, revealed it was concluded in 2000 that the officer involved, Ray Adams, had been wrongly cleared of a corruption probe in the 1980’s due to a ‘totally fictitious’ account by a police informant. The informant in question was connected to David Norris who was eventually convicted for Lawrence’s murder in 2012. The Guardian reports that Mr Adams has denied any wrongdoing and has described his role in Lawrence’s murder investigation as minor.
Stephen Lawrence was just 18 years old when he was murdered in a racist and unprovoked attack in South East London in 1993 by a gang of white youths. The police investigation into his murder was heavily criticised in the 1999 Macpherson report for being ‘palpably flawed’ and was found to have resulted from incompetence and institutional racism.
Mr Adams was called to give evidence to the Macpherson inquiry but it was concluded there was no evidence to suggest he had been corruptly involved in holding back the prosecution. However, the leaked report may raise new questions about his role.
The BBC reports that Imran Khan KC, the solicitor for Stephen’s mother, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, described the report as ‘dramatic, disturbing and shocking’. He calls for the Met to ‘apologise for not telling Baroness Lawrence and her family about what they knew, and I want them to apologise to Sir William Macpherson’s inquiry and to admit that they misled that inquiry’.
The Guardian further reports that Imran Khan KC has called for ‘two criminal investigations for perjury or perverting the course of justice as result of this document.’ The first would look at ‘the witness allegedly providing false testimony,’ and second ‘whether Adams told the truth at the Macpherson inquiry, about who he knew, and about corruption.’
A former head of anti-corruption at the Met, Bob Quick stated: ‘Adams was under suspicion at a number of points in his career, and particularly towards the end. After he left, his name surfaced in a number of corruption operations. Intelligence was available but not the hard evidence for a prosecution.’
Despite the scrutiny, the Met contend that past inquiries into the corruption of the officers revealed no wrongdoing stating ‘The IOPC found no indication that any officer may have committed a criminal offence.’
However, the Met failed to answer the BBC’s questions regarding the report’s conclusions on Mr Adams. They simply stated that the material would be reviewed before determining if further action is required.
Imran Khan KC stated that: ‘If the Met want to recover trust and confidence, this is the opportunity for commissioner Sir Mark Rowley to take action, where there appear to be reasonable lines of inquiry.’
