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Police Spies Tried To Smear The Family Of Stephen Lawrence.

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anotheoldgit | 08:37 Mon 24th Jun 2013 | News
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Why has it taken 20 years for this whistle-blower to come forward?

/// The whistleblower is one of several to come forward to reveal deeply suspect practices by those ordered to infiltrate political protest groups from the 1980s onwards. ///

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Question Author
LazyGun

/// I mean - are you trying to argue that it is unimportant or unnecessary that we know when the police carry out such tactics? ///

No I think in this case one has to ask why the police thought it necessary to seek out matters concerning the Stephen Lawrence family and associates.
Because they wanted to create a smokescreen to hide their own inadequacies.
Question Author
jackthehat

/// Because they wanted to create a smokescreen to hide their own inadequacies. ///

Something that you can't possibly substantiate.
What theory have you for us to consider, AOG?
aog, the family and associates were making a fuss about the police's competence, motives and behaviour. Therefore it was in the police interest to make those people less credible.
AOG, I take it you remember the Macpherson Inquiry ...

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Stephen_Lawrence#The_Stephen_Lawrence_Inquiry

On 31 July 1997, the Home Secretary Jack Straw ordered a public inquiry, to be conducted by Sir William Macpherson and officially titled "The Inquiry Into The Matters Arising From The Death of Stephen Lawrence". Its report, produced in February 1999, estimated that it had taken "more than 100,000 pages of reports, statements, and other written or printed documents" and concluded that the original Metropolitan Police Service investigation had been incompetent and that officers had committed fundamental errors, including: failing to give first aid when they reached the scene; failing to follow obvious leads during their investigation; and failing to arrest suspects. The report found that there had been a failure of leadership by senior MPS officers and that recommendations of the 1981 Scarman Report, compiled following race-related riots in Brixton and Toxteth, had been ignored.

Detective Superintendent Brian Weeden said during the inquiry that mistakes had been made in the murder investigation, including his own ignorance that he could have arrested the suspects four days after the killing simply on reasonable suspicion, a basic point of criminal law.
The Report also found that the Metropolitan Police was institutionally racist. A total of 70 recommendations for reform were made. These proposals included abolishing the double jeopardy rule and criminalising racist statements made in private. Macpherson also called for reform in the British Civil Service, local governments, the National Health Service, schools, and the judicial system, to address issues of institutional racism.
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Today, as a result of this story breaking (rather than at the time of Macpherson), Straw has referred the Met to the Independent Police Complaints Commission ...

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2013/jun/24/jack-straw-stephen-lawrence-video
Former home secretary Jack Straw says he fears the allegations that police planned to smear the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence were true. Jack Straw, who as Labour home secretary commissioned the Macpherson report into police handling of Stephen's murder, is to refer the case to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. He says the revelation shows that parts of the Metropolitan police had a corrupt culture
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Not sure of the answer to the question but how much more of this are we supposed to put up with before the Police forces of this country are disbanded and set up anew ? And this is BEFORE the Hillsboro Disaster Enquiry is reopened.
/No I think in this case one has to ask why the police thought it necessary to seek out matters concerning the Stephen Lawrence family and associates. /

I think the Police will be asked that very question in the near future.

I'm sure we will all be very interested in whatever explanation they come up with.

That's if they have the time, there must be several hundred officers they still haven't yet interviewed about the more recent example of officers lying to 'fit up' the government Chief Whip in 'Plebgate'
It seems every public service we have are affected by these very corrupt tactics, gagging orders, whistleblowers, celebrity sex pests all coming to the surface after 20+ years. I wonder if more 'lessons will be learned'.
Question Author
jackthehat

/// What theory have you for us to consider, AOG? ///

We constantly hear only one side of the story in this case, and it is always slanted against the police.
You are very welcome to provide a plausible explanation of your own, AOG
Question Author
Ellipsis

Stephen Lawrence was not the first black person to be murdered, nor even the last, so why do you think the police should be institutional racist only towards that case alone, wasn't the reason because there was racial unrest around that time, and something had to be seen to be done?
it is always slanted against the police

Well they did fail to secure a conviction for 18 years; it's hard to find any way to praise them for this. If you were murdered tomorrow, and the police didn't get their act together until 2031, I should be quite cross on your behalf.
/it is always slanted against the police./

Yes

Damned inconvenient when police undercover cops start writing memoirs about their inappropriate duties

In the interests of a 'level playing field', perhaps the police can find an undercover officer who had been trying to dig up some 'dirt' on the Lawrence family but was ordered to stop and was sent off to infiltrate an organised crime gang instead.
@ AoG For Clarity then

When you post this
"No I think in this case one has to ask why the police thought it necessary to seek out matters concerning the Stephen Lawrence family and associates."

I am unsure as to your meaning. The implication of todays allegations are that someone within the Met., feeling the heat of the public interest in the Lawrences high profile campaigning, sanctioned an undercover cop to dig for dirt in an effort to discredit the Lawrences and their campaign and hence ease the pressure on the Met.itself.

Any suggestion that the Lawrences or Stephen himself was involved in anything dodgy, thus providing a possible motive for the murder might have been a legitimate line of enquiry at the time of the investigation, regardless of skin colour - but that is not what is being suggested here.

Now, we do not know that these allegations are correct, but they certainly need to be investigated, because if it were true then that severely weakens the public trust in the police service - something it can ill-afford.For the PM to comment on the matter, for the Home Secretary to offer a statement to the House, for BoJo to comment points to a fairly rare instance of cross-party consensus as to the gravity of the allegations.

I will definitely be watching "Dispatches" tonight, which I believe is all about this matter...
AOG asks why it took 20y for the fella (Francis) to come forward.
I thought this myself and I suppose we have to ask him - watch teevee tonight.
In the IRA - which was known to have Gentlemen (McGuiness, Price sisters, Gerry doodah) and players (Mad mikey, mad Pat, etc) - and what wasnt well described is that the players appeared to have a life-cycle. When very young they would kill everyone and anyone, after ten years, kill only selected targets and at the very end, say to themselves, why are we doing this ?

and I suggest that is what has happened here.

Benjy Stanley who people will remember was a 15 y o blown away in a fish and chip shop, ended up with £ 50k in a bank acct and had a father who was an ex dealer.....[so it is possible that there was dirt to be dug up]

odd points which have not been taken up,

are that Doreen Laurence complained at the time that the support police were asking questions that didnt seem to be related to family support

and also someone has surfaced who says that Francis was suggesting things they just didnt want to do [agent provocateur] so they chucked
him out

so I think it at the time people were saying there is something odd, very odd about all this.

I can tell you Brian Weeden saying he didnt know he could arrest on suspicion (but instead on reasonable doubt) caused consternation and disbelief in police and legal circles.
AOG

You seem very determined that he could be lying. Or that it doesn't matter. Or that the time it has taken him to come forward takes away his credibility. Why?

Peter Pedant

Eh?
Did you expect anything different, Gromit?
Ummmm

No. AOGs history posting on the Lawrence case is there for all to see. He has consistantly been antagonistic to the notion that the Lawrence family should have had a proper investigation, a fair trial and that they get justice for their dead son who was the victim of a racist attack.

Why he should behave this way about a young black man being murdered is a mystery.

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