Met police name new suspect in Stephen Lawrence murder
The Guardian says The Metropolitan police have named a major new suspect in the Stephen Lawrence murder, admitting too many mistakes were made in the initial investigation.
Matthew White, who died in 2021 aged 50, was named after a BBC investigation into the killing of the black teenager, who was murdered in a racist attack in south-east London in April 1993.
The BBC reported that five prime suspects became widely known after the murder, but the public inquiry said there were “five or six” attackers.
In 2011, White was named publicly for the first time at the trial of David Norris and Gary Dobson, who were given life sentences for the murder in 2012, but only as a witness.
It took 19 years for Norris and Dobson to be convicted of Lawrence’s murder and an inquiry into the police investigation said it had been “marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership”.