Today is Stephen Lawrence Day. It commemorates the 30th anniversary of the lethal stabbing of 18-year-old Lawrence in Eltham, south-east London, at the hands of a gang of young men.
Initially, six suspects were arrested but not charged, before the Lawrence family launched an unsuccessful private prosecution against five of them in 1994. It was not until 2012, after a change in the law allowing individuals to be tried twice for the same offence, that two of the gang were eventually convicted of Lawrence’s murder.
Do I need to add more details? Isn’t this one instance where the name of the victim – Stephen Lawrence – is enough to conjure up a tragedy and summon a sequence of events?Many will be able to immediately recall that photograph of the teenager in a blue and white striped top. It is sometimes cropped to remove Lawrence’s slightly raised fist, as if some fear this gesture would take away from the severity of the crime in some way. But ar…
