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Lawrence legacy: the fight against racism
Evening Standard18 Feb 2009
February 1999
Sir William Macpherson's report into the death of Stephen Lawrence in 1993 finds that the Met is guilty of “institutional racism”, which he defines as “the collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin”.
Met Commissioner Sir Paul Condon said: “I recognise that individual officers can be, and are, overtly racist. I acknowledge that officers stereotype, and differential outcomes occur for Londoners. Racism in the police is much more than “bad apples” .
January 2002
Sir John Stevens, who took over as Met Commissioner in 2000, says: “We have moved on light years in the past two to three years. Even our most trenchant critics will give us that. We are not institutionally racist. The culture is changing, it needs to change further — and it will.”
September 2003
Senior Asian officer Ali Dizaei claims that he was deliberately targeted because of his outspokenness on race after being cleared of corruption charges at the Old Bailey. He says his opponents were motivated by a view that: “We don't like him, he doesn't conform to our normal values, he is not one of us, we can't have him in the club, and last but not least, he is a dissident.
“He is part of an organisation we can just about tolerate. But by taking him out it'll be a huge blow to the National Black Police Association and it will send a very powerful message to them not to challenge us post Lawrence.”
February 2005
Sir Ian Blair, then the new Met Commissioner, says that the force is still “institutionally racist” but has made significant improvements in improving equality.
Yes it's institutionally racist because all organisations are at the moment, but we've moved on hugely. Seventeen per cent of our recruits are from ethnic minority communities. The first black commissioner is a while off, but we could easily get there in my lifetime.''
March 2005
A report by the Commission for Racial Equality, headed by former director of public prosecutions Sir David Calvert-Smith, also finds that the police have made “significant progress” over race since the Macpherson report, but it warns: “Willingness to change at the top is not translating into action lower down, particularly in middle management where you find the ice in the heart of the police service.”
July 2008
Met Commander Shabir Hussain brings a racial discrimination case against the Met, which he later loses, and claims that promotion to the top ranks is reserved to a “golden circle” of white officers. “Promotion to the highest ranks of the Metropolitan Police Service appears to operate by the earmarking of a golden circle' of preferred candidates,” he says.
August 2008
Met Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur launches a claim for racial, religious and age discrimination against the Met and Commissioner Sir Ian Blair which he later settles out of court in a deal worth about £300,000.
“My case is essentially to do with my treatment at the highest levels of the Met, in particular the discrimination I have been subject to over a long period of time by the present commissioner Sir Ian Blair,” he says.
Alfred John, chairman of the Met's Black Police Association, said that discrimination remains a serious problem, adding: “Racism, both institutional and individual, still continues within the Met. In fact, it has not improved that much since the Macpherson report.”
February 2009
A new Metropolitan Police Authority investigation into racism in the Met, ordered by Mayor Boris Johnson, begins as a report by the Runnymede Trust warns that ethnic minority citizens continue to suffer from disadvantage both within and at the hands of the police service.
