Stuart Lawrence, 35, the brother of Stephen Lawrence has launched a race discrimination case against Britain’s biggest police force, claiming officers have harassed him due to his skin colour.
He claimed that Metropolitan Police officers had stopped him at least 25 times over recent years because he was black.
Mr Lawrence a teacher by profession has claimed that he was victim of a prolonged campaign of harassment from the Scotland Yard officers.
The father-of-one, from Peckham, south London, said that he has been repeatedly stopped in his car with “no apparent reason and without any justification”.
Yesterday his litigation lawyers have suggested that the capitals police were unfair in dealing with Mr Lawrence and stopped him many a times as he was dark skinned.
It was reported that a letter of complaint was sent today to Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Met Police commissioner, outlining the case and naming the officers involved.
Meanwhile the Scotland Yard has claimed that it had no knowledge of a complaint as yet from this particular individual. It has to be said that the Scotland Yard had been accused in 1999 for being institutionally racist by the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
In the instant case, in November last year, Mr Stuart Lawrence was stopped while driving his VW Scirocco, through South-East London near his home he shares with his fiancée and two year-old son.
It left him angry and deeply sceptical about why the two officers wanted to question him. They said they were “naturally suspicious” of him, he said.
He was being targeted because of the colour of his skin, and he did not think that he was being targeted because he was Stephen’s brother,” he told the Daily Mail.
Every time he was stopped he was not charged for anything and nothing wrong was found with his car he added.
He said that he never did anything wrong nor was he ever in trouble with the law.
He said of the “25 or so” occasions in which he was stopped, only two have been at police checkpoints – where they verified people’s tax and insurance while the rest coming during “random stops” including when he was on lunch break.
He added as he was getting older now, the circumstances in which he was being stopped were more ludicrous and more over the top.
Mr Lawrence’s litigation solicitor said that Stuart had 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.”
duncan12
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