WHEN GARY Dobson (36) and David Norris (35) were yesterday jailed for 15 and 14 years respectively for the racist murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence, their sentence was calculated on the tariff for juveniles. They too were teenagers then – nearly 19 cruel years have elapsed since the two thugs and at least three accomplices stabbed Lawrence to death at a bus stop in Eltham, southeast London.
Little wonder then Lawrence’s campaigning parents took little comfort from Tuesday’s unanimous verdict. Justice delayed, it is said, is justice denied, and the comfort two jailings will bring is scant solace for the heartache of those unnecessary years or the knowledge there is virtually no prospect that others will yet be charged.
“How can I celebrate when I know that this day could have come 18 years ago if the police, who were meant to find my son’s killers, had not failed so miserably to do so?” Doreen Lawrence told journalists.
The belated redemption of the Metropolitan Police is welcome, however. The failings of the original investigation, exposed by the 1999 Macpherson public inquiry, ranged from incompetence to “institutionalised racism” – a police culture that reflected the times, when the plight of minority victims mattered little and little effort was expended on their behalf. Four police investigations, two trials, a judicial inquiry, the repeal of the “double jeopardy” rule for serious crimes, and breakthroughs in scientific testing were necessary in the end.
Racist attacks, and the pervasiveness of racism in communities in Britain, did not begin with Stephen Lawrence. For many young people in the minority communities, “living in fear” was an accurate description of their lives. Nor did the Lawrence case put an end to that racism – as recent incidents on the football field illustrate. But the climate in the police and society has genuinely changed for the better, although anti-Muslim prejudice has become a real problem. Racist incidents and hate crimes, by and large, are not shrugged off or tolerated as they once were, the police and criminal justice system and many social organisations have changed markedly. There is more to be done, but what has been achieved, in no small measure, is a sad tribute to the courage of the campaigning Lawrence family.