What the son of Cherry Groce thinks the Met Police must do to win back trust

The son of an innocent mum shot by a police officer in the 1980s, has said he felt he saw history repeat itself when Chris Kaba was killed earlier this year.

Lee Lawrence, 48, was just 11 years old when his mum, Cherry Groce, was living with her eight children in Brixton, south London, was shot by Inspector Douglas Lovelock.

It was Saturday, September 28, and Lee was with his mum, along with his three sisters, one who was pregnant, and his dad.

Lee heard a knock at the door, and then he heard another bang.

He jumped up and saw his mum lying on the floor. He didn’t know what to do.

It dawned on Lee who was standing in front of him, it was a police officer. He screamed at the officer and said he’d kill him if he touched his mother again.

He says the officer then pointed his gun at him and said, ‘Somebody had better shut this f****** kid up.’

In a botched dawn raid, the police had been looking for Mr Lawrence’s older brother Michael, who had allegedly threatened officers with a sawn-off shotgun a few days earlier.

Cherry was left paralysed from the waist down after she was shot by a police officer in 1985 (Picture: PA)

Lee has spoken of the pain he felt when his mum was shot, and when he heard Chris Kaba had been shot (Picture: Metro.co.uk)

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They thought he had been hiding in his mum’s home in south London.

Michael was never charged in connection with that or the riot which followed his mother’s shooting.

Lee’s father followed as his mother was taken to hospital and the children were left with two police officers.

Word spread in the community and crowds began to form and people wanted to know why an innocent mother had been shot.

It sparked a two-day uprising, which was the second major riots the area had seen in four years.

Ten police officers and dozens of civilians were injured, and one dead.

Lee was just 11 when his mum was shot (Picture: Lee Lawrence)

Cherry was left unable to work after the tragic shooting (Picture: PA)

Mr Lawrence said: ‘In all that madness I just kept thinking, is my mum going to be alright? Because I saw her lying in a pool of blood.’

‘And that’s the catalyst, some people called it riots, but I refer to it as an uprising.

‘There was some comfort that we weren’t alone, there were people out there who cared enough to take to the streets, and demand to know answers as to why this happened.

‘I’m indebted to the community for standing up.

‘I don’t think what happened to my mum would be recognised in the same way today, if it wasn’t for the fact that people came together and demonstrated that injustice.’

He added: ‘Just like there shouldn’t be Black History Month, or there shouldn’t be a Black Lives Matter movement.

‘It only exists because black people are being treated in a way that looks like we clearly don’t matter.’

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Mrs Groce was in hospital for the following year while Mr Lawrence and two of his siblings went to stay with a family friend.

Later the children became carers for their mother. She spent 26 years in a wheelchair after the botched raid.

His mum survived but was paralysed from the waist down for rest of her life, and Lee and her family were convinced it was the fault of the policeman that she died.

In 2011, she contracted an infection that led to kidney failure, and she passed away on Easter Sunday.

Now Lee knew that he had to fight even stronger for his mum’s injustices, and wanted to make sure her name was remembered and spoken about in classrooms 40 years later.

Lee started an incredible journey that ended three years later – in March 2014.

An inquest jury found a series of failings by officers led to the shooting of his mum.

Dorothy’s death sparked riots across south London (Picture:Associated Newspapers)

The Brixton Riots in 1985 (Picture: Associated Newspapers)

Police faced petrol bombs from the rioters (Picture: Associated Newspapers)

The riots were sparked after the news that CHerry had been shot spread across Brixton (Picture: PA)

It was found that: ‘Dorothy Groce was shot by police during a planned, forced entry raid at her home, and her subsequent death was contributed to by failures in the planning and implementation of the raid.’

The medical evidence had shown her injuries contributed to her death 26 years later.

The Metwas then shamed into apologising for the wrongful shooting.

In a statement the Met commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, said: ‘Today, I apologise unreservedly for our failings.

‘I also apologise for the inexcusable fact that it has taken until now, for the Met to make this public apology.’

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Inspector Douglas Lovelock – the policeman who actually fired the shot – was acquitted of inflicting unlawful and malicious grievous bodily harm, by a Jury at the Old Bailey in 1987.

An inquest jury in 2014, three years after Cherry’s death, then concluded: ‘Dorothy Groce was shot by police during a planned, forced entry raid at her home, and her subsequent death was contributed to by failures in the planning and implementation of the raid.’

The jury found there were eight failures in total made by police.

These included failures to properly brief officers that Michael Groce was no longer wanted by police.

They also failed to adequately check who lived at the property, including women and children, and to carry out adequate observations on the house.

Lee said hearing that news was a huge achievement,  it was a sign of the steps he had took to try and make sure his ‘pain’ and ‘torture she felt wasn’t in vein.

But he now feels like part of it was, and when he see’s incidents like the shooting of Chris Kaba he feels that same pain.

He said: ‘I probably felt how most people fromthe black community felt. We thought what’s changed?

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‘It re-evokes my trauma, because straight away I’m thinking about what happened to my mum, in the room where she was shot.

‘You’re saddened to think in this day and age, an unarmed black man would be shot in the head whilst sitting in his car.

‘And it just goes to show there’s so much more work still to do.

‘I do engage, I do, I contribute to police training.

‘To know you’re active, you’re trying to do your bit, to try and use what we’ve gone through to try and shape a better future, and this happens on top of it.

‘It can set you back a bit.

‘However it also allows me to renew my commitments to doing what I do because it’s so needed.’

This year marked the 37th anniversary of horrific shooting, and PC Lovelock firing the bullet that ultimately led to his mum’s death.

Lee said: ‘In order for all those people’s lives who have been sacrificed, to really matter, we all need to be committed to change that we want to see in the world.’

He forced importance on the youth, and the tools and voices available to them within the community.

Assistant Chief Constable of West Yorkshire John Domaille at the bedside of Cherry Groce in St Thomas’ Hospital, London, who he visited for the first time since she was shot by police in 1985 (Picture: PA)

Lee Lawrence is now trying to educates youngsters about his mum and her story Picture: PA / AP / Associated Newspapers /The Metro

Michael Groce – Lee’s brother – with his grandmother Euphemi Hamilton. Lee was pictured as he gave himself up at Kennington police station (Picture: Associated Newspapers)

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He said: ‘The importance of having your voice heard and listened to, is so empowering and changed how we felt about everything that we’ve been through, so to be able to depart that onto young people and empower them to have their voice heard, that’s the important thing.

‘It’s about young people now, it’s about how can we support them.’

‘We’re not going to see it in our lifetime, we’re not going to see really fair balanced world where no one is treated differently because of the colour of your skin were not going to see that in our lifetime but it doesn’t mean what we’re doing is in vein.

‘It’s about how much can we do when we’re here, to further the cause, to get on and pick up with it, and they are much further along the line to racial justice.’

He said it is about how about how we hold the police accountable, and how to make reforms to the police services ‘for the better.’

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He said: ‘We need to make changes so the police are in a position to ‘serve the black community and the black community can feel that they can rely on the police, just like any other race.

‘So that’s around what we can do to hold them accountable and being part of training and consulting and advising and so on, and the other aspect is

‘How we support the community directly, so we make sure our story and other stories are shared.

‘So that people not just only understand these things have happened, they understand what we’ve had to do.

‘They understand, what differences we’ve made.

‘Anything we see what’s in the place that might be deemed as an improvement, and we see we’ve pushed for that.

‘We need to empower young people to take the baton on from that point, rather than starting from the beginning again

‘Our work around education and our work around support is very important, especially for people who have been traumatised, because there’s a lot of people walking around unhealed from past traumas.

‘There’s a saying, Hurt people go on to hurt people.

Tony Young – Lee’s uncle, at the bedside of his sister Cherry, after she was shot in 1985 (Picture: PA)

‘What people don’t understand is we’re seeing this stuff playing itself out with young people and with violence.

‘A lot of that is because there is trauma that hasn’t been dealt with.

‘We have to use our experiences and what we’ve been through to shape a better future.

‘Reliving and retelling your trauma is hard work, and it’s not enjoyable work, but you do it because you’re rooted in the cause.

‘It’s making sure that for me personally, all that I’ve gone through to make some sense of it I feel like it’s very important to carry on this journey and do what I can do.’

‘The purpose outweighs the challenge.’

‘It’s a bigger problem than for just meme, but it’s understanding that you have a role to play, and if you do your bit, and do it to the best of your ability, it will count.

‘And I think that could have made a difference in my life.

‘If someone had come into my school and gave me an understanding of my reality of what I’m facing day to day.

‘That you’re not alone, although sometimes things happen to you, that you can’t control, we always have a choice in how we choose to deal with it.

‘So I can overcome adversity and I can find different ways to channel my energy.

‘But if you don’t see enough examples of that, then there’s nothing to work towards.

‘There’s no measure of what’s possible

‘So if you can bring that type of hope, then hopefully that’s a good start.’

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Cherry Groce was shot and paralysed by a police officer in 1985. Her son Lee has spoken of the trauma he still sees every day in the black community that has been impacted by his mum’s death.