Murdered Stephen Lawrence’s mum blasts bungling Met cops for failing to investigate sixth key suspect of racist attack
STEPHEN Lawrence’s mum has blasted Met cops for failing to properly investigate a key suspect named yesterday for the first time over the black teenager’s racist murder.
Matthew White is suspected to be the mystery sixth member of a gang who attacked and stabbed 18-year-old Stephen to death at a bus stop in Eltham, South London, in 1993.
Yesterday it emerged how White — who died aged 50 in 2021 — was identified to police by his stepfather within a month of the killing.
But cops approached another partner of White’s mother — and the error was not realised until 2013.
Baroness Doreen Lawrence said: “The latest revelation that a key suspect in the murder could have, and should have, been properly and thoroughly investigated is shocking but unsurprising.
“I have got used to the litany of failings in my son’s case.”
White bears a striking resemblance to an e-fit of the thug who launched the attack on Stephen.
And in 2020 — the very year that cops shelved the investigation — he told a shopkeeper he assaulted that he would be “Stephen Lawrenced”.
White was spoken to as a witness and said he was with other people at the time — but the alibi was flawed.
He was dismissed as a suspect by the Met original investigation team, who also ignored a 1997 recommendation from Kent Police reviewing the case to look again at him.
He failed to attend the Stephen Lawrence public inquiry as a witness in 1999 and then emerged as a suspect a year later when a new witness came forward.
He was arrested in March 2000 and then again in December 2013 after the “significant and regrettable error” over his stepfather’s tip-off came to light.
Files were sent to the CPS after both occasions but lawyers ruled there was insufficient evidence.
Until yesterday White had only been named in public as a witness.
But a BBC investigation has exposed the Met’s failure to investigate White.
Baroness Lawrence added: “It should not have taken a journalist to do the job that a huge, highly resourced institution should have done.
“It simply beggars belief that those paid to do a job continue failing to do it.
“Constant and repeated apologies from the MPS will not bring my son back and will not give me justice.
“The failure to properly investigate a main suspect in a murder case is so grave that it should be met by serious sanctions.
“Only when police officers lose their jobs can the public have confidence that failure and incompetence will not be tolerated and that change will happen.
“It is too late for me and my family but at least I hope that victims in the future will not go through what we did.”
Met deputy assistant commissioner Matt Ward said: “Unfortunately, too many mistakes were made in the initial investigation and the impact of them continues to be seen.
“On the 30th anniversary of Stephen’s murder, Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley apologised for our failings and I repeat that apology today.”
Only two of the gang — Gary Dobson and David Norris — have been convicted of Stephen’s murder.
Three others, brothers Neil and Jamie Acourt, and Luke Knight, have previously been identified as suspects.
Dobson and Norris were jailed for life at the Old Bailey in 2012.
Trial judge Mr Justice Treacy said: “On the evidence before the court, there are still three or four other killers of Stephen Lawrence at large.”
But Clive Driscoll, the senior officer in the prosecution, said he was discouraged from pursuing it by former commissioner Dame Cressida Dick.
At the time, Dame Cressida was head of the Met’s specialist crime command.
He said: “There is no doubt that there wasn’t the enthusiasm to carry on. The “Sword of Damocles” was hanging over the team.”
He went back through files and found the mistake.
An original message from a Met detective, unconnected to the case, who knew White’s step-father Jack Severs, was found.
Mr Severs had said his stepson was not telling police all he knew.
His team found White’s mother had been married twice after separating from his father — and the original team questioned the wrong stepfather.
When he was finally contacted in 2013, Mr Severs sarcastically said: “You’re rushing this job.”
He then went on to say how his stepson had admitted being present during the attack, saying Stephen deserved it.
Mr Severs, now dead, said White had behaved like it was an “everyday occurrence” and added he knew those involved but did not identify them.
The mistake over White’s stepfather was not picked up when another witness came forward in 2000 and said White had confessed he was present at Stephen’s murder.
The witness also claimed White had said Norris, Dobson, Knight, and the Acourt brothers had been there with him.
He said he had spoken to White soon after the murder and he had told him, “We’ve done some black kids up the road”.
Meanwhile, questions have been raised over why the CPS has taken two years to decide whether four former cops on the Lawrence inquiry should face misconduct charges for mistakes.
A file was sent on the case by the IOPC in June 2021.
‘Watch out or you’ll be Lawrenced’
By Isaac Crowson
THE new Stephen Lawrence murder suspect died in 2021 — but just a year before his death he assaulted a shop owner just yards from where the 1993 murder took place.
Matthew White had a long history of theft offences and in 2020 he was confronted when caught shoplifting in Eltham, South London.
Before attacking the owner he had said “remember what happened to Stephen Lawrence?” and told him he would be “Stephen Lawrenced”.
White, who was a drug user and later a heroin addict, was known as a “troublemaker” who hung out with Jamie and Neil Acourt — other suspects in the murder.
But a source said: “He was not big time. He was a junkie who did odd jobs.
“He was nothing special when it came to criminality. He was a bit of a loser really and did not have anything going for him.”
White died alone in a bedsit during Covid restrictions in 2021. His inquest heard his body was not found for several days and the cause of death could not be worked out.