A former Metropolitan police commissioner has admitted that covert surveillance of Stephen Lawrence’s family by undercover officers was institutionally racist, the spycops inquiry heard on Tuesday.
Paul Condon, who led the Met in the 1990s, told the inquiry that the monitoring of Doreen and Neville Lawrence as they campaigned for a proper investigation into their son’s racist murder “meets very well the parameters of institutional racism”. The undercover unit, the special demonstration squad (SDS), had spied on the family and reported details about the couple’s separation to superiors.
“Paul Condon tells spycops inquiry Met spying on Stephen Lawrence's family was institutionally racist.”
Condon, now a member of the House of Lords, is the highest-ranked officer to give evidence to the long-running public inquiry headed by retired judge Sir John Mitting. Speaking more broadly about the SDS, he said the force had failed over decades to control the unit, which committed “horrendous” abuses. He acknowledged there were “rogue officers who’ve done some bad things” but blamed the greater fault on the Met’s systemic failure to supervise the squad rigorously.
“They were told daily as their job to lie, cheat and deceive as a way of life,” Condon said of the undercover officers, adding that the Met should have realised covert work “can be corrupting” without strong rules. The SDS spent 40 years spying on tens of thousands of political activists.
The failure to rigorously investigate the 1993 murder was one of the biggest issues Condon handled, causing enormous damage to the Met’s reputation. The inquiry was set up after the Guardian revealed how the SDS spied on the Lawrences and their supporters. Mitting is examining wide-ranging misconduct by undercover officers, including how they monitored grieving parents while they sought justice.
