High Commissioner Johnson welcomes new Stephen Lawrence murder trial
July 1, 2011
Jamaica’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, His Excellency Anthony Johnson has hailed the ruling by the British Court of Appeal to allow a new trial into the 1993 murder of Jamaican teenager Stephen Lawrence.
Mr Johnson said he hoped that Stephen’s parents, Neville and Doreen Lawrence, both of whom are Jamaican, could take comfort from the fact that after a long battle for justice, their son’s alleged killers will finally face justice.
The police reported that Stephen Lawrence was stabbed twice by a group of white youths as he waited at a bus stop in Eltham, South East London on the night of April 22, 1993. The Greenwich university architecture and design student was with his friend Duwayne Brooks when the mob began racially abusing them. Brooks ran and managed to escape. Stephen Lawrence tried to follow suit but was already mortally wounded and collapsed on the pavement. He later died in hospital and was buried in Clarendon Jamaica.
The case became one of the most highprofiled murder cases in the United Kingdom and attracted charges of institutional racism.
The Lawrences brought a failed private prosecution into the murder. The new trial will rely on new forensic evidence which was factored into the ruling by a panel of judges headed by the Lord Chief Justice.
Doreen Lawrence said after the ruling: “I’m really emotional now. I’m really pleased by the judgment. It’s been a long time in coming, but we still have a long way to go. At this moment in time, all I can think about is Stephen and that perhaps, somewhere down the line, we will get justice for him. It’s been a long time for us to get to this position.”
High Commissioner Johnson praised the indomitable spirit of Neville and Doreen Lawrence saying they had demonstrated the importance of fighting relentlessly for justice.