Far from creating a better world the Stephen Lawrence case became hijacked and twisted around to suit the needs of official anti-racism. Just when a new generation might have discarded those old race-tinted spectacles Macpherson-think said put them back on.
ARTICLE - Posted: January 9th 2012
Who could blame Doreen Lawrence for relentlessly pursuing justice for her son? For both Doreen and Neville Lawrence losing their teenage son in such a brutal attack must have delivered excruciating torment - suffering made infinitely worse by the failure of the police to produce a conviction.
In 1993, the year that Stephen was murdered, there were 565 recorded homicides in the UK – less than the typical yearly average of around 700. About a third were stabbings. On January 18th 1993, some 13 weeks before Stephen’s murder, 16 year old Claire Tiltman from Greenhithe, Kent was stabbed more than 40 times as she took a shortcut to visit a friend. Her killer has never been found. Speaking in 2003, Claire’s father described the frustration of not knowing who was responsible for the murder, “You cannot take out your anger on anyone - if I knew who it was it would help," he said. Regular viewers of the BBC TV show Crimewatch will have witnessed the heart-wrenching agony of those who struggle with the loss of a child, a parent or a close friend, knowing that the perpetrator is still out there.
But what kind of justice has Doreen Lawrence achieved? “How can I celebrate?” she said after yesterday’s convictions. “How can I celebrate when my son lies buried, when I cannot see him or speak to him? When I will not see him grow up or go to university, or get married or have children. These verdicts will not bring my son back.”
The catharsis given by ‘justice’, so yearned for by a bereaved parent, is one thing. But ‘justice’ in its utilitarian sense of serving the social need for fairness over who is or is not punished is quite another. In this sense, to say that justice has been served by the January 3rd Old Bailey verdict is highly problematic. As has been commented on Spiked the abandonment of the double jeopardy principle should cause us great concern. Of course, the reason that the murder of Stephen Lawrence achieved such extraordinary and lasting prominence was that it became, almost instantly, both a racist murder and cause célèbre complete with a botched investigation that itself became regarded, not as police ineptitude but as evidence of police racism.
Just two weeks after the murder the Lawrences met with Nelson Mandela who happened to be visiting London. “The Lawrences’ tragedy is our tragedy” said Mandela to the press. He went on to compare the brutality of Stephen’s murder to South Africa where “black lives are cheap”. By this time the Lawrences home had been over-run by members of the Anti Racist Alliance (ARA). Members of the Black Panthers arrived dressed in hoods and dark glasses. The Anti Nazi League came to the house with money they had collected. The ARA introduced the Lawrences to a young, newly qualified solicitor called Imran Khan. Although all except Imran Khan were eventually asked to leave Doreen Lawrence was later to pay tribute to the anti racist groups for making her aware that she was the victim of racism, “… you need groups like the ARA to point out issues to you…”. (1)
Police incompetance notwithstanding, things might have been very different had the first murder trial not collapsed back in April 1996. Then, the evidence from identity parades given by Stephen’s friend Duwayne Brooks was ruled as inadmissible causing the case to be dismissed and the three then defendants – Neil Acourt, Luke Knight and Gary Dobson to be acquitted. Even Sir William Macpherson could not get around the fact that Brooks’ evidence was hopelessly tainted (a fact undisputed by Brooks himself). He was later to comment: “the evidence of Mr Brooks was effectively destroyed by fair and logical cross-examination”. (2)
After the botched investigation and two failed attempts to prosecute, by 1997 the incoming Labour government knew a good opportunity when it saw one. Jack Straw announced what was to become the Macpherson inquiry into matters arising from the death of Stephen Lawrence. This was a chance to make a politically lucrative investment in ‘race relations’.
The true legacy of Stephen Lawrence, we are constantly told, is that his tragic death and the tireless campaigning of Doreen Lawrence “brought home to middle England the evils of institutional racism”. Thanks to Sir William Macpherson’s 1998 inquiry (we are constantly told) British society woke up to the fact that it was dripping in racism – ‘we taught Macpherson and Macpherson taught the world’ said one anti-racist campaigner at the time.
You have to take a very deep breath before you criticise the Macpherson inquiry. Thirteen years on, the inquiry and its ‘findings’ still possess the status of Holy Writ. In mainstream circles challenging it is heresy. When Trevor Phillips, the head of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) publicly stated his view that ‘institutional racism’ is no longer applicable to modern Britain he was treated to a torrent of press invective and three EHRC board members resigned.
The extraordinary conduct of the Macpherson inquiry is anatomised in precision detail in a much overlooked and distinctly un-mainstream book by Norman Dennis, George Erdos and Ahmed Al-Shahi published by CIVITAS as far back as 2000. In Racist Murder and Pressure Group Politics: The Macpherson Report and the Police Dennis et al remind us that the near pathological violence of the suspects Neil and Jamie Acourt, Gary Dobson, David Norris and Luke Knight was far broader than their racism. Collectively they were a hated and exceptionally violent group of teenagers. Neil and Jamie Acourt had been linked to the stabbings of two white youths, Lee Pearson in 1991 and Stacey Benefield in 1993 (just a few weeks before the Lawrence murder itself). In May 1992 Norris, Knight and Jamie Acourt randomly attacked and wounded Terry and Darren Williams. Moreover, the group’s reputation for violent aggression toward randomly selected victims was well known in Eltham. – the Acourts in particular were nicknamed ‘the Eltham Krays’.
The fact that Stephen Lawrence seemed to have been selected by the five attackers because he was black may well make his murder a “racist attack” by any standard, but Macpherson came to the view that it was imperative that all police witnesses at his inquiry accept that the attack was unequivocally and purely motivated by racism. For police officers to have ‘expressed the view that they did not believe the case was purely motivated by racism’ demonstrated , pronounced Macpherson, ‘inherent racism in the officers involved’[ ] they were indeed institutionally racist’. Macpherson later stated: ‘the determination to water down the racist element of the killing offends Mr and Mrs Lawrence and the community, black and white’.
In fact, police officers in the case were sufficiently knowledgeable about this particular group of youths and their reputation for free-floating aggression they were bound – especially on oath - to disagree that this could ever be described as a purely racist attack. Moreover, the now infamous surveillance camera footage shot in Dobson’s flat in 1994 included rants against non-black groups – old people, the police. Norris boasts about beating "a gran’dad" and his son-in-law to the ground for "moaning about the dogs" (Norris was in the local park at the time).
Intriguingly, Dennis et al note that in his opening speech counsel for the Macpherson inquiry also took the view that racism is neither the essence of the conduct of such white English youths, nor the root explanation for it. These were “violent thugs” who “did not limit their gratuitously violent attacks to black victims” said Edmund Lawson QC. So if, at the start of the proceedings, the inquiry did not view the attack as purely racist then why should it expect the police officer witnesses to do so? As Dennis et al put it, “On their own argument, therefore, had the Macpherson people concerned with preparing and presenting early statements about the problem inadvertently proved themselves to be racists?” Nor does the inquiry’s final report draw any significance from Royston Westbrook’s evidence, a white man who witnessed the murder and felt the attack was so motiveless that it might have been leveled at him if the two boys had not been there. (3)
As the Macpherson inquiry slowly progressed it began to construct its own unique concept of ‘institutional racism’. The inability of police officers to state that the murder was ‘purely’ racist was, for Macpherson, evidence of institutional racism. The inability of officers to confess that their actions were a result of institutional racism was further evidence of institutional racism. One of Sir William’s three advisers Dr Richard Stone scolded Met Commissioner Sir Paul Condon for his failure to recant, “…I say to you now, just say, “Yes, I acknowledge institutional racism is in the police” … Could you do that today?” Another adviser, Dr Robin Oakley, urged Sir William to be mindful that “in fact” institutional racism is “pervasive throughout the culture and institutions of the whole of British society’. Dr Oakley made no attempt to demonstrate how he knew this.
By the time the Macpherson Report was published in 1999 the “corrosive disease’ of institutional racism had been defined as an infection ‘seen or detected’, as he put it, “… in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantage minority ethnic people”. The Macpherson Report makes clear that its conclusion of police racism rests only in part on ‘findings in the actual investigation’. Its ‘body of evidence’ outside of the official inquiry included 171 publications, which, in conjunction with oral evidence from various invited organizations and individuals, produced the report’s distinctive ‘finding’ and eventual definition of institutional racism, both in the police and society at large. (4)
As Dennis et al so very succinctly point out, the inquiry produced a definition of racism that “absolved it from producing any”. It was a definition of racism that placed “charges of racism outside the boundaries of proof or rebuttal”. Armed with such a definition Macpherson could interpret all manor of police incompetence as manifestations of the disease. The fact that police officers on the scene failed to administer first aid was no longer explained by a lamentable absence of first aid training, it was institutional racism. The fact that police officers described Duwayne Brooks as “aggressive, anti-police, distressed and unhelpful” could no longer be explained by the fact that he was by his own admission all of those things (he called one female police constable a ‘fucking cunt’ and ‘pig’), it was the ‘racial stereotyping’ of a black man and yet another “manifestation of unwitting racism”. To interpret events as ‘manifestations’ in this way, suggest Dennis et al, “releases the person who uses [such terminology] from any obligation to show any evidence but the conduct itself. The cause is read back from the conduct; the fact of the conduct is proof of the cause”.
Even enthusiastic supporters of the Macpherson inquiry couldn’t help notice the strange absence of any real evidence. Brian Cathcart former deputy editor of the Independent on Sunday and author of The Case of Stephen Lawrence (1999) wrote, “as the inquiry moved towards its close it was still the case that no evidence had been produced of a single act of deliberate, malicious racism by a single officer”. (5)
In many ways, the inquiry itself became the model for the distorted anti-racist mind-set that has persisted ever since: the inquisition-style presumption of guilt; the abandonment of the need for evidence, and the establishment of conduct itself as proof of racial motive were all elements feeding off a single certainty – the existence of an all-pervasive institutional racism that was often unwitting or hidden and only the enlightened guardians of post-macpherson anti-racism could detect.
A year after the report’s publication, Cabinet Office minister Lord Falconer commented that Macpherson ‘had proved that our society and particularly the police are riddled with racism’. Macpherson had proved nothing of the sort, but the belief that it had fast became received wisdom for mainstream commentators and the credo for a new generation of race missionaries. As the political class basked in its newfound sense of moral superiority over the bigoted masses, official anti-racism (suitably armed with new state legislation, advice and guidance) set about its task of managing ‘race relations’ from cradle to grave. A particular emphasis was placed on education at the ‘earliest age’ and the need for a ‘zero tolerance’ approach.
The vanity of commentators, following the January 3rd verdict is striking. Every opportunity, it seems, is taken to exaggerate the dark days of racism circa 1993 and the heroic role played by Macpherson (and his supporters) in changing the landscape of ‘race relations’ (always with the caveat that ‘there’s still much, much more to be done’). Eltham itself is still viewed with relish as the ‘racist capital of Britain’ despite the fact that Doreen Lawrence told the inquiry that before the murder Stephen had only ever experienced racism once (when a friend called him a name at school). And there is perhaps no greater irony than listening to Macpherson-inspired commentators trading in contemptuous racial stereotypes about the white working class.
Commenting in the Guardian Imran Khan said, "It pleases me that someone from Big Brother who is said to be a racist causes a furore; that footballers can be admonished in the press and thought of badly because there is a hint of racism. That would never have started in 1993." The advent of an era of racial etiquette and hate-speech witch-hunts may please Imran Khan, but we should be clear - today its precisely the rarity of racial tension and violence that makes it so shocking to us.
The real legacy of the Stephen Lawrence murder is the Macpherson mindset. Today the policing of informal behaviour for speech offence takes its cue from Macpherson. An industry of diversity monitoring and management covering workplaces, schools and local authorities takes its cue from Macpherson. Suddenly everyone and no-one is guilty of racism and careless talk can result in careers and reputations destroyed.
There will always be some who’d have us believe that social progress comes about courtesy of state sponsored inquiries, legislation and ever more regulation which serve to ‘manage’ the behaviour of the masses. Official anti-racism seldom presumes it might just be a growing melting-pot of ethnic diversity that really drives positive change forward. But in many ways, its the rush of superdiversity – the sense in which a new biologically, culturally mixed-up generation frees itself of racial thinking – that quietly mocks the Macpherson mindset. Perhaps its time for some serious heresy to lend this process a hand?
Notes:
(1) Racist Murder and Pressure Group Politics: The Macpherson Report and the Police (p110) Norman Dennis et al 2000 (CIVITAS)
(2) Macpherson, The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, Cm 4262-I, p306 quoted in Dennis et al (as above)
(3) Macpherson, The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, Cm 4262-I, p157 quoted in Dennis et al (as above)
(4) Ironically, Macpherson's recommended definition of a racist incident as 'any incident perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person' was borrowed from the Association of Chief Police Officers. It was a definition in police use by 1993, Indeed officers confused Macpherson panel members by stating the Lawrence murder was a 'racist incident' whilst questioning that it could be purely racist (ie they were using the 'Macpherson approach' before Macpherson had understood it himself!)
(5) The Case of Stephen Lawrence, Brian Cathcart,1999 (Penguin Viking)
