My helpless mum was shot in botched police raid that sparked Brixton riots – her terrified plea echoed George Floyd’s
SCHOOLBOY Lee Lawrence was in bed when armed cops stormed his south London home and mistakenly shot his mum, leaving her paralysed from the chest down.
Aged just 11, he found his mother, Cherry Groce, lying badly wounded and bleeding on the floor, with a gun-toting officer towering over her. “I can’t breathe,” she was crying out.
The bungled raid in Brixton in September 1985 was the most terrifying, and violent, incident Lee had ever witnessed. It sparked one of the infamous Brixton riots of the 1980s, which saw buildings destroyed, cars torched and shops looted.
Yet for Lee and his family, it was only the start of their nightmare.
Once a “free-spirited” mum who loved to dance, Cherry soon discovered she’d never walk again. Wheelchair-bound, with bullet fragments lodged in her spine, she battled countless infections and pressure sores.
Lee, then still a youngster, became her carer. Suffering from horrific flashbacks and with his family living a “hand to mouth” existence, his thoughts turned to getting justice for his mother.
Now, 35 years after the shooting, Lee has penned a book about his desperate fight for justice for Cherry, who died aged 63 in 2011, having spent her last 26 years in and out of hospital.
His memoir, The Louder I Will Sing, also details the moment he screamed, “What the f*** have you done? You shot my mum!”, as he saw his mum’s collapsed body during the botched raid.
George Floyd’s death brought back all the emotions we had gone through… especially when I heard the words, ‘I can’t breathe’, because they’re the words my mum said
Lee Lawrence
It’s a sight that flooded back to Lee, now 46, a few months ago, when he watched the video footage of a US cop kneeling on the neck of African-American dad George Floyd before he died.
“It brought back all the emotions we had gone through as a family – especially when I heard the words, ‘I can’t breathe’, because they are the words my mum said,” Lee tells Sun Online.
“The shooting was the first time I’d witnessed anything violent. Literally, overnight, it changed my whole world. Even on the day, I was so confused, I just kept thinking it was a dream, a nightmare.
“Mum had done nothing wrong, she was innocent. It wasn’t even like you could say, ‘I was in the wrong place at the wrong time’. You’re at home, in your room, your safest place to be, and this happens to you.”
Childhood dreams turn into nightmare
Growing up in Brixton as a young black boy – in a community subjected to deep racism – Lee dreamed of being a policeman himself. He had a sheriff’s badge and a toy gun, and watched hit cop shows like Starsky & Hutch.
“I wanted to be that do-gooder, someone who wants to help others, the hero” he recalls. “I wanted to get the bad guys, to save the world.”
Surrounded by love, reggae music – which his mum adored – and a remarkable “community spirit”, Lee says he felt safe.
But that all changed during the dawn police raid on September 28, 1985.
What were the 1985 Brixton riots?
It started in Lambeth, south London, on September 28 – the same day that 37-year-old mum Cherry was mistakenly shot in a dawn raid by the Metropolitan Police.
At first, rumours spread that Cherry had been killed. Members of the community gathered outside her house, before moving to the police station, where they chanted “murderers”.
During the two days of rioting that followed, cars were set ablaze, petrol bombs were hurled and dozens – on both sides – were hurt. A photo-journalist, David Hodge, was fatally injured.
In response to the situation, police deployed officers in riot gear. They made more than 100 arrests in one evening, including for acts of violence and burglary.
Fortunately, the early reports that Cherry had died were false – but she was left paralysed from the chest down. She eventually passed away in 2011, with failures in the raid “contributing” to her death.
The Brixton uprising was the second major riot in the district in four years: in 1981, protesters – mostly, young black men – fought the Met Police over three days following months of racial tension.
The earlier clash resulted in hundreds of police injuries.
More than 40 members of the public were also hurt, while almost 150 buildings were damaged, looted or burned down.
Lee, who had just started secondary school, was in bed when he heard a loud bang. At the time, he was sharing a downstairs bedroom with his mum Cherry, dad Leo – who only stayed at weekends – and big sister Sharon.
Four others were also in the house: Lee’s pregnant sister Juliet was in an upstairs bedroom, while his third sister Lisa, and two young children belonging to his mum’s friend, were in another room.
Horrific discovery
Concerned by the bang, Cherry jumped out of bed and raced to investigate. But moments later, Lee heard another bang: this time, louder, closer and sharper. Instinctively, he knew it was a gunshot.
Leaping up himself, Lee saw the door had been battered down. His mum, then just 37, was on the floor, wheezing: “I think I’m going to die. I can’t feel my legs.” A cop, he says, was pointing his gun at her.
The bullet, it would later emerge, had flown through Cherry’s shoulder and shattered her spine. Fragments would remain embedded in her body for the rest of her life, leaving her in agony.
“Mt mum was just lying on the floor and this man was standing with a gun in his hand, and I was just screaming hysterically,” recalls Lee, adding that his dad, now also awake, looked terrified.
‘I was screaming hysterically’
As more cops stormed in, wielding weapons and with dogs on leashes, it became clear they were looking for Lee’s older brother Michael, now a community worker, over a suspected firearms offence.
Soon after, an ambulance arrived and Cherry was stretchered off to hospital. Looking back towards her home, she bravely tried to smile and wave at her sobbing children through the window.
What followed was a two-day uprising over the shooting – the second, after the 1981 Brixton riots. One person died and dozens of others – including a reported 10 cops – were injured.
For the next 18 months, Cherry remained in hospital.
Lee visited her every day, rushing home from school to dump his bags before heading straight to the ward. At first, he was confused by the large box covering his mum’s legs, knowing that wasn’t where she’d been shot.
“I thought, ‘this is weird’,” says Lee. “Then when the doctors said she would never walk again, that was devastating.”
At school, Lee became disruptive. Having received no therapy, he had frequent outbursts, which were simply put down to “bad behaviour” rather than the result of trauma.
When his mum was eventually discharged, the family moved into a purpose-built bungalow on an estate in Gipsy Hill, three miles south of Brixton, where they struggled financially.
Because Leo was mostly out of the picture, Lee took on the role of Cherry’s carer. One summer, when his trainers fell apart, he tried to nick some from the shops so he didn’t have to worry his mum.
Unfortunately for him, he got caught. But Lee, now a father of three himself, tells us: “Luckily, the security guard was able to see it for what it was and not take it any further.”
From the day I went to the hospital, I made a vow to myself that I was going to care for my mum. And I took that job really seriously
Lee Lawrence
He adds: “From the day I went to the hospital, I made a vow to myself that I would no longer be able to rely on my mum in the way that I used to – and that I was going to care for her.
“And I took that job really seriously… I felt she deserved that.”
Sadly, as time progressed, once “outgoing and sociable” Cherry became reclusive, with occasional outbursts of anger. Paralysed in the lower half of her body, she ended up “imprisoned” at home.
She suffered countless health scares, too: on one occasion, she didn’t realise she’d sat on a pen lid and it became embedded in her leg. Another time, doctors feared they’d have to amputate her limb.
Eventually, in April 2011, Cherry’s condition deteriorated and she passed away in hospital with her children at her bedside. Among her heartbreaking last words to Lee were: “I just want to be free.”
Tragically, Cherry hadn’t seen justice for her shooting in her lifetime.
In 1987, the officer who shot her, Inspector Douglas Lovelock, had been acquitted of malicious wounding at the Old Bailey. He had insisted the shooting was a terrible accident that left him in a state of shock.
To the family’s disappointment, it took eight years for Cherry to receive £500,000 compensation from the Met Police over the shooting – and the out-of-court settlement did not include an admission of liability.
Long-awaited justice
But Lee would eventually get justice for his mum.
During Cherry’s post-mortem, a forensic pathologist concluded that the bullet fragments in her body – which had been too risky for doctors to remove – played a part in the kidney failure that killed her.
Then, in 2014, an inquest jury found that Cherry’s death “was contributed to by failures in the planning and implementation of the raid”.
For Lee – who had been forced to launch a high-profile campaign for legal aid for the inquest – it was the vindication he’d long been hoping for.
Finally, then-Met Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe apologised “unreservedly” for the force’s failings. He also apologised for the “inexcusable fact” that a public apology had taken so long.
“It was a bitter-sweet moment for me,” Lee, a former DJ, tells us.
“I was relieved that it was finally acknowledged in the light that it should be – and that there was an apology – but hugely disappointed it took so long that the person who most deserved to hear it was no longer here to do so.”
It was a bitter-sweet moment for me… the person who most deserved to hear the acknowledgement and apology was no longer here to do so
Lee Lawrence
Today, Lee is a “social entrepreneur” who runs Mobility Enterprises – a firm providing public transport for the disabled – and sits on the advisory board of various London police departments.
He still thinks of his mum every day – and, with his family, has set up the Cherry Groce Foundation in her name. The charity supports adults who have become disabled through personal tragedy, and their carers.
While Lee’s book tells the story of a devoted mum who kept her inner strength after an unimaginable horror, it also looks at the underlying racism in society.
He reveals his own childhood experiences of racism – from being called a “monkey” by a police officer, to the impact that teen Stephen Lawrence’s racist murder had on him in 1993.
Even today, Lee, still living in south London, tells us: “I always have this thought that runs through my mind that I’m going to be shot… if I see the police, I still get a bit nervous.”
‘I’m still fighting hard for change’
Though Lee acknowledges many of Britain’s cops are good people fighting for change – like the ‘hero policeman’ he once aspired to be – he says they “can’t achieve” it by themselves.
And it’s the lack of change so far that has left him fearing for the futures of his children, Brandon, 24, Harmony, 12, and eight-year-old Ruby-Lee, born after his mum’s death.
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“I do worry about their future – and that’s why I fight so hard still,” says Lee, who recently attended a Black Lives Matter protest with his daughters.
“In terms of what happened to my mum and us, we’ve been acknowledged. So you could say, ‘your work’s done’.
“But we’ve still got this problem in the world and I’ve got children. And I want to try to make the world a better place for them.”
- The Louder I Will Sing by Lee Lawrence is published on Thursday, September 17, by Sphere (£16.99). EBook and audio also available.