What does the name Stephen Lawrence mean to you?

Today is Stephen Lawrence day.

We'd like to thank Kristian Ademola, a member of our hospital staff, for sharing his reflections this Stephen Lawrence Day.

Kristian is a EPR Training & Support Analyst at our hospital. He is also the Chair of our staff BAME network.

Reflections on The Murder and Legacy of Stephen Lawrence

by Kristian Ademola

Stephen Lawrence, that’s a name that a lot of people irrespective of colour, race, or creed nationally will never forget.

On the evening of the 22nd?of April 1993 whilst waiting for a bus in Well Hall Road, Eltham Stephen Lawrence and his friend Duwayne Brooks were victims of an unprovoked racially motivated attack by a group of white teenagers. Stephen Lawrence was stabbed and murdered in this attack. His death would have major ramifications in this country and be a major catalyst for change.

I was 16 at the time, two years younger than this young man. I remember hearing about the murder on the news and always hearing the words, “the murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence”.

I was disgusted, angry and saddened by the senseless murder of this young man. This could have been me or any other black teenager that was just going about their life waiting for public transport.

Like most black people living in the UK, I knew that this country had, and still has, racial issues. Racist attitudes weren’t always overt or necessarily prevalent; they were more subtle and insidious than that, usually masked behind that stiff upper lip, liberalism, the sense of fair play and tea and crumpets! I’d grown up black in Britain and not just in London, so I was under no illusion that this was a post-racial paradise – places like that only exist in works of fiction or propaganda.

Despite this, I was surprised that five white youths had stabbed and killed Stephen in such a manner because of the colour of his skin. That’s what forever sticks with me: that this young man was denied life, denied a future, denied of his family’s love; his hopes and aspirations gone as he bled out in Eltham simply because of the colour of his skin.

At the time, none us knew how significant the Lawrence case would be in the United Kingdom. Its fallout included cultural changes of attitudes towards racism and the police; to the law and police practice. It also led to the partial revocation of the rule against?double jeopardy , which is common place as a?procedural defence ?in law.

The initial investigation was flawed and bungled by both the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service. Furthermore, a 1998 public inquiry, headed by Sir William Macpherson, led to the publication of the Macpherson Report in 1999, which found that the original investigation was incompetent and that the Metropolitan Police force was?institutionally racist .

The Macpherson Report has been called "one of the most important moments in the modern history of criminal justice in Britain". Furthermore, the Lawrence case was said to be "one of the highest-profile unsolved racially motivated murders" in Britain. Twenty-nine years later, that still stands.

This was Britain’s George Floyd in many ways. However, it’s debatable if there was ever a real racial reckoning.

As a country, we are more polarised than ever. Last year, the ‘Sewell Report’ (the colloquial title given to the report released by the Commission on?Race ?and Ethnic Disparities in March 2021), which was highly criticised and controversial, all but denied the existence of racism in modern Britain by downplaying structural racism and the wider political and social disadvantages within society. It left out recent low points in government policy in its execution by ignoring the?Windrush scandal .

Nearly three decades after the death of Stephen Lawrence, it appears that, superficially, much has changed. However, if you look closely and delve deep enough, you’ll see that for every three steps forward, we’ve probably collectively taken about 10 steps back!

Racism is still very much alive and well in the UK. In fact, with the rise of the far right in a beleaguered, divided, and desperate UK, so many people and groups are more emboldened than ever to express their vitriolic rhetoric.

The Stephen Lawrence case shows me that through love and determination, a family can fight for justice and be a catalyst for change at the highest levels. I can’t even imagine how the Lawrence family suffered publicly and privately. The scenes outside the courts in south London, the total lack of remorse by Stephens’s murderers, and their disdain for the predominantly black crowds still trouble me; they went as far as to spit on some of the crowd that gathered to support the case and voice their condemnation of the system that allowed these men to go unpunished for so long.

As the father of a young black male teenager, I am more aware of how much hasn’t improved in 29 years.

Difficult conversations still need to be had in all strata of life. People must be willing to listen and to learn, otherwise we can never move forward.

This Friday, 22 April 2022 –?your day , Stephen – we remember you and we celebrate your legacy and the impact that your murder has had on the UK.

May you continue to rest in peace.

Our BAME forum would like to ask you, what does the name Stephen Lawrence mean to you?