STUART LAWRENCE, the brother of murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence, has complained to the Metropolitan Police that officers have stopped and searched him 25 times because he is black.
Stuart Lawrence’s lawyer, Imran Khan, said that he is the victim of a sustained campaign of harassment by Scotland Yard officers over many years.
His lawyers have lodged a race discrimination complaint against the Metropolitan Police Service, saying that the 35-year-old teacher has been repeatedly pulled over in his car for ‘no apparent reason and without any justification’.
The latest incident occurred on November 16 near the home he shares with his fiancée and two-year-old son in Peckham, south London.
He was driving his VW Scirocco when two officers stopped him. After asking why he had been pulled over, he said one of the officers replied that he had been ‘naturally suspicious’ of him.
Stuart Lawrence said: ‘I am being targeted because of the colour of my skin, I don’t think it’s because I am Stephen’s brother.
‘Whenever I have been stopped, I have never subsequently been charged with anything, and nothing has ever been found to be wrong with my car.
‘I have never, ever, done anything wrong. I have never been in trouble with the law. I have paid my road tax and my insurance, and always tried to keep my cars in a roadworthy state.
‘Of the 25 or so occasions in which I have been stopped, only two have been at police checkpoints – where they are verifying people’s tax and insurance. The rest have been random stops.’
He added: ‘There can be no other reason, apart from racism, for me being stopped so often.
‘If I had no road tax, no insurance, or if I was driving erratically, I would understand being pulled over. But on no occasions was that the case.’
Stuart Lawrence’s solicitor Imran Khan said: ‘Stop and search is often used as a litmus test for how the police treat those from minority ethnic communities.
‘Stuart’s experience shows that rather than passing this litmus test, the Metropolitan Police have remained consistently bad.
‘Stuart has suffered immeasurably over the last 20 years.
‘First with the murder of his brother in 1993, then the failures of the police in their investigation into the murder and to cap it all being unfairly stopped because of his skin colour.
‘Previously Stuart has not complained or otherwise drawn attention to what has happened to him, but now, when the Metropolitan police seemingly trumpet how things have changed for the better, he has felt the need to take action. He has now instructed me to use the full force of the law.’
Stuart Lawrence added: ‘I would like to know when things are going to change, when is there going to be a society where you are not pulled over because you are a black guy or a black person driving a particular car.’
A letter of complaint has been sent to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe.
