Police ‘admit bugging’ friend of Stephen Lawrence
A former senior police officer tells Channel 4 News he authorised the recording of a meeting involving Duwayne Brookes, the friend who was with murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence when he died.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Grieve, who was director of the racial and violent crimes task force between 1998 and 2000, said it was a “necessary” measure to “protect the integrity of witness evidence” as part of the investigation into Stephen’s murder.
In a statement to Channel 4 News, he said he “deeply regrets any distress, dismay or alarm” that his decision “may have caused to Doreen Lawrence, Neville Lawrence and Duwayne Brooks.”
Mr Grieve said he did not inform Mr Brooks or his lawyer because he did not want to “risk a situation where approval to record the meeting overtly was not given, potentially meaning valuable evidence could have been lost.”
He insisted it was not about “deliberately tricking anyone” but that the “clear objective was to convict Stephen’s killers and we felt that we had to use all permitted, ethical and legal means available to us in order to achieve that”.
Missing recording
The Metropolitan Police has confirmed that officers had found a document authorising the recording of a meeting involving Mr Brookes, held in May 2000.
An ongoing investigation, led by Deputy Assistant Commissioner Fiona Taylor, is still trying to find the recording itself.
Mr Brooks, now a Liberal Democrat councillor, had met with the Metropolitan police and his legal team in 1999 or 2000, at his lawyer’s offices. And it is one of these meetings that police officers are alleged to have been authorised to covertly record.
The acknowledgement follows allegations made by an undercover officer to Channel 4’s Dispatches that he was asked to find “dirt” on Stephen Lawrence’s family.
Mr Brooks, who was waiting for a bus with Stephen on the night he was murdered, met with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on Friday to discuss claims that police secretly recorded his meetings.
Call for investigation
After the meeting, which lasted an hour, Mr Brooks’s lawyer Jane Deighton said: “[we] told the deputy prime minister that it was untenable for any government not to do anything it could, now, to secure the quickest, most through and the most transparent investigation into these allegations of police misconduct.”
She added that the covert recordings were of “immediate concern” and that “the deputy assistant commissioner of the police has confirmed there are documents evidencing at least one such authorisation.”
Ms Deighton believes that more documents exist and has asked for their immediate disclosure. She said “these documents are ones that Duwayne really wants to see and he wants to see them now, and he sees no reason why he shouldn’t see them now.”
The prime minister said he was “deeply concerned” by the allegations made by Peter Francis, an undercover officer, to Dispatches.
In January 2012 Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty of being involved in the murder of teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993.
They were sentenced to life imprisonment, after a forensic review of the case found significant new scientific evidence on clothing seized from their homes following the murder.