Cold Open

It’s around 10:30 PM on April 22nd, 1993, at a bus stop in Southeast London, England.

Eighteen-year-old student Duwayne  Brooks peers at the timetable, as his friend Stephen Lawrence fidgets to keep warm in the cold spring air.

Stephen is an aspiring architect the same age as Duwayne. The boys have known each other since the start of high school, and they’ve spent the evening at Stephen’s uncle’s house, playing video games. When the time came for them to head home, they decided the quickest route would be to change buses here on Well Hall Road.

But they’ve been waiting for a while now, and the bus hasn’t arrived. The delay is starting to make Duwayne nervous. The area they’re in, Eltham, is a predominantly white suburb, and as Black boys, Duwayne doesn’t feel he or Stephen is safe. He’s heard too many stories of other Black Londoners getting harassed or attacked here.

So Stephen wanders farther up the street, looking for any sign of their bus. Duwayne calls after him, asking if he can see anything.

But before his friend can answer, Duwayne hears another voice. A group of six white teenagers has appeared on the opposite side of the street. One of the boys shouts a racial slur. Then, they all rush across the road.

Duwayne bolts in the opposite direction, screaming at Stephen to do the same.

But Stephen doesn’t have the time. When Duwayne glances back, he sees a white boy strike Stephen with what looks like an iron bar. Stephen falls to the ground and is instantly engulfed by the rest of the pack.

There’s a flurry of kicks and punches. And after just a few seconds, the attackers scatter and sprint away into the night. As Stephen staggers to his feet, Duwayne hurries to help him. Scared the white teenagers will return, Duwayne urges him to run, but Stephen can’t do much more than a painful, lopsided jog—and soon even that becomes too much. With each step, he grows weaker. In a feeble voice, Stephen calls out Duwayne’s name... and then falls to the ground.

Stephen Lawrence never makes it to the hospital. He dies on the cold sidewalk in Southeast London, and his brutal, unprovoked attack will shock the nation and become a turning point in race relations in the United Kingdom. But it will take almost twenty years, and a family’s relentless campaign for justice, before anyone is convicted for the murder of Stephen Lawrence on April 22nd, 1993.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is April 22nd, 1993: The Murder of Stephen Lawrence.

Act One

It’s April 22nd, 1993 in Southeast London, a few moments after Stephen Lawrence was attacked.

Inside a phone booth, Duwayne Brooks grips the receiver with trembling fingers. An emergency operator answers, and words tumble out as Duwayne tries to describe what’s just happened.

But Duwayne does not yet grasp the full horror of the attack. Stephen’s jacket has concealed the extent of his injuries. And what Duwayne thought was an iron bar was in fact a knife. Its blade has left two five-inch-deep wounds in Stephen's arm and chest, and each one has severed an artery.

The emergency operator asks where the boys are. Duwayne starts to recite the address listed on the phone, but he quickly realizes it’s wrong. The operator then asks for the number of the phone, but that’s incorrect too. Frustrated, Duwayne slams the receiver against the booth's wall. The clock is ticking, his friend is hurt, and Duwayne is getting nowhere.

Leaving the phone dangling, Duwayne rushes onto the street. A car passes by, and he tries to flag down the driver. But the man just swerves around him. Then when a couple walks out of a nearby church, Duwayne pleads for their help. But they ignore him and hurry by.

Finally, one car does stop. Duwayne hurries to the driver’s window and explains that his friend has been attacked. Thankfully, the driver is an off-duty police officer. He takes over the emergency call while his wife follows Duwayne back to Stephen who's still alive, but now unconscious, with his breathing shallow.

As Duwayne scans the road for any sign of an ambulance, a bus passes by - the one that he and Stephen were waiting for. He watches the bus wait for a few seconds at the stop before it pulls away to continue on its route. Duwayne wishes that he and Stephen could be on it but instead, he’s kneeling by his unconscious friend on the cold sidewalk.

A few moments later, a blaze of blue lights and sirens announces the arrival of the police. The on-duty officers ask Duwayne what happened. But with every question, Duwayne’s frustration mounts. The officers seem to be treating him more like a suspect than a victim. Duwayne pleads with them to help Stephen, who’s still lying unmoving on the ground. The hospital is only a mile away—they could drive him there right now. But the officers refuse to break procedure.

As Duwayne becomes more agitated, the police grow alarmed. The officers threaten him with handcuffs and tell him to quiet down. All the while, a pool of blood is forming around Stephen, and no one is administering first aid.

By the time paramedics finally arrive, Stephen’s clothing is saturated with blood. As he’s lifted into the ambulance, Duwayne worries that his friend is already gone.

His fears are soon confirmed. At the hospital, Stephen is pronounced dead on arrival having suffered catastrophic blood loss.

The investigation into the attack on Stephen is now a murder case. Yet the police still show no urgency. They fail to even do the basics, like securing the crime scene, starting incident logs, or launching a coordinated search for suspects.

And their inaction isn’t for a lack of clues either. Just the day after the attack, officers begin receiving anonymous tips from the local community—and most name the same perpetrators: Gary Dobson, David Norris, and brothers Neil and Jamie Acourt . All are white teenagers aged 16 to 17, and all are well known in this part of London for racially motivated violence.

Yet the police delay making arrests. Instead, for two weeks, investigating officers just keep their suspects under surveillance.

It's not until South African leader Nelson Mandela visits the Lawrence family to raise awareness of the case that the police officers finally take concrete action. The day after Mandela’s visit, they make the first arrests in the case. Within a week, Gary Dobson, David Norris, and brothers Neil and Jamie Acourt are all in police custody. A few weeks later, a fifth suspect, Luke Knight, is also arrested.

After Duwayne identifies Neil Acourt and Luke Knight in police lineups, the two teenagers are charged with murder, and Stephen’s family begins to hope that justice will be done. But then, in late July 1993, the case against the men is dealt a seemingly fatal blow. Prosecutors decide there isn’t strong enough evidence to bring the suspects to trial.

For the Lawrences, their grief in losing Stephen will now be laced with anger at this injustice. But they will not tolerate it. And if the authorities won’t take the murderers to court, Stephen’s family will just have to do it themselves.

Act Two

It’s September 1994 in London, a year and a half after the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

Stephen’s parents, Doreen and Neville Lawrence, sit across from their new legal team in a small meeting room. They’ve gathered here to discuss an extraordinary undertaking: a private prosecution against the five suspects accused of murdering their son. 

Last year, after public prosecutors dropped charges against two of the suspects, many observers criticized what they saw as inadequate police work. The officers assigned to the case did not seem to follow basic investigative and record-keeping procedures. But the Lawrences suspect that this was more than just incompetence. They think racism also played a role. From the moment they arrived on the scene, the police appeared unwilling to believe that a couple of Black teenagers could be the innocent victims of a street attack.

Instead, some officers assumed Stephen and his friend Duwayne Brooks must have instigated the violence or were involved in criminal activity before the murder. Others questioned Duwayne’s statements dismissing his account of the attackers’ racist language by failing to track down witnesses who could confirm or deny his story.

The Lawrences believe that such prejudice fatally undermined the investigation. And with no sign that the public prosecutors will change their mind about proceeding with the case, Doreen and Neville have decided to take matters into their own hands. It’s a daunting prospect. Private prosecutions are extremely rare in the United Kingdom. They’re expensive and fraught with legal obstacles. But the Lawrences refuse to back down.

So as their legal team outlines the next steps, the couple listens intently. They’ll need to prove what the police have failed to substantiate: that Neil and Jamie Acourt , Gary Dobson, David Norris, and Luke Knight are guilty beyond a reasonable doubt once and for all because in the UK, double jeopardy prohibits a person from being tried twice for the same crime. If any of the suspects are acquitted, even in a private prosecution, they can never be prosecuted for Stephen’s murder again.

So for the next two years, the Lawrences’ legal team painstakingly builds its case. They gather witness testimony, reconstruct the events of the murder, and reexamine old evidence. They scour police surveillance of the suspects, including footage from a covert camera installed in Gary Dobson’s home.

There, they find chilling evidence of the mindset of the suspects and their extreme propensity for violence. The camera footage shows the men going on racist tirades, fantasizing about brutalizing and killing Black people. When they go out for the night, a large machete always goes with them. And when they stay in, they often play with knives as they talk, miming the violent acts they describe. On one occasion, Neil Acourt swings his knife in a downward motion as he pretends to attack someone. This action stands out to the Lawrences’ legal team. It’s the exact motion that would have caused one of the injuries Stephen sustained.

But the video is only circumstantial evidence—there’s no direct confession to murdering Stephen. Still, it confirms what many already believe: these men are more than capable of such an attack.

But it still might not be enough. In August 1995, a judge rules that the Lawrences’ evidence against Jamie Acourt and David Norris is not strong enough. They’re dropped from the private prosecution. But the evidence against Neil Acourt, Gary Dobson, and Luke Knight is deemed sufficient to go to trial. After years of fighting, the Lawrences will finally have their day in court. And for Doreen and Neville, justice feels closer than it’s ever been.

That feeling evaporates when trial finally begins. In court, the judge rules that Duwayne Brooks’ identification of the attackers is unreliable. And without his key testimony, the prosecution’s case collapses. In April of 1996, the three defendants are acquitted.

For Doreen and Neville, the loss is devastating. But they still refuse to accept defeat. And over the coming months, the British public rallies around the Lawrences. By 1997, the demand for action is deafening. The Daily Mail newspaper plasters photos of all five suspects on their front page under the headline, “Murderers.” The paper challenges the men with the words: “The Mail accuses these men of killing. If we are wrong, let them sue us.”

In response to this and other public pressure, the government orders an official inquiry into Stephen’s murder. The resulting report is damning. It declares that the investigation by London police was plagued by professional incompetence, systemic racism, and poor leadership. It details the missteps, the neglect, and the indifference that enabled Stephen’s murderers to get away with it.

The report also makes 70 recommendations for reform. Many will be implemented—and one will have a direct impact on the Lawrence case itself. In 2005, the British government will abolish the double jeopardy rule for serious crimes in which new evidence has come to light. For the first time in almost a decade, the Lawrences will have a chance to bring Stephen’s killers back to court. And, they hope, this time, justice will be done.

Act Three

It’s January 3rd, 2012, at the Old Bailey courthouse in London, almost 19 years after the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

Inside a courtroom, Neville Lawrence sits motionless in his seat. Now nearly 70, his gray beard frames a face that’s been etched by years of grief. Beside him, his wife Doreen Lawrence sits upright, her eyes fixed ahead, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. Both are anxiously awaiting the outcome of their long campaign for justice.

After the British government partially revoked double jeopardy laws in 2005, Stephen’s case was reopened. Advances in forensic technology allowed investigators to reexamine clothing fibers and microscopic bloodstains that were once thought too small to analyze. When the results come back, Stephen’s DNA was found on the clothing of Gary Dobson and David Norris. The two men were charged with murder once again. And now, after six weeks of testimony and nearly two decades of fighting, the jury has reached a verdict.

A hush falls over the room as the jurors file in. In the dock, defendant Dobson, now 36, exhales sharply as he stands. Beside him, 35-year-old Norris tilts his head back. The clerk tells the foreman of the jury to rise who then delivers the same verdict for both Dobson and Norris: guilty.

Doreen Lawrence begins to weep. Next to her, Neville sits utterly still. But as the verdict sinks in, a single tear rolls down his cheek. Relief mingles with sorrow. Justice has been served, but Stephen is still gone, and several men involved in his murder remain free.

But Stephen’s murder will leave a legacy. His case will lead to reforms in policing as well as the law, and it will increase public awareness of the poisonous effects of systemic racism.

Stephen’s mother, Doreen Lawrence, will continue to advocate for social justice. And in 2013, she will take her crusade to Parliament, after she is appointed to the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the UK’s legislature.

Still, for both Doreen and Neville Lawrence, no amount of progress will ever replace the life their son was denied — the future that was stolen from him in an act of senseless violence on April 22nd, 1993.

Outro

Next on History Daily. April 23rd, 1014. When the King of Ireland dies in battle, his kingdom is plunged into anarchy.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing and sound design by Gabriel Gould.

Supervising Sound Designer Matthew Filler.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Alexandra Currie-Buckner.

Edited by Scott Reeves.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.