Fresh look at corruption claims in Lawrence case

A POLICE watchdog will review whether allegations of corruption in the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation were passed on to a major inquiry.

Scotland Yard said it called in the Independent Police Complaints Commission after checking “a considerable number of files and reports dating back to the 1980s”.

The review was sparked amid claims that a confidential report compiled by the force’s anti- corruption command was not disclosed to the panel of the 1998 Macpherson Inquiry that looked at the Met’s handling of the case.

The force has so far refused to disclose if two months of searches by its own detectives had uncovered any evidence that reports had not been passed on.

A Met statement said: “The Directorate of Professional Standards has reviewed a considerable number of files and reports dating back to the 1980s as well as conducting interviews with key individuals involved in the original investigation into both Stephen Lawrence’s murder and police corruption.

“We have retrieved key documents which greatly assist in understanding what material was available to the Macpherson Inquiry and are now in the process of sharing our findings with the Independent Police Complaints Commission so that they can review it.”