Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were today attending a memorial service to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the murder of Stephen Lawrence and to celebrate his life and legacy.
Harry and Meghan were due to speak to Stephen’s mother Baroness Lawrence and her son Stuart at the entrance of St Martin-in-the-Fields Church, Trafalgar Square, ahead of the service. Harry will read a message of support on behalf of Prince Charles at the service.
Stephen was murdered by a gang of racists in Eltham, south-east London, on April 22, 1993.
His murder was a watershed moment in modern race relations in the UK, after the subsequent Macpherson Report into the case concluded the police were guilty of “institutional racism”.
At the memorial service, Sir Lenny Henry was set to interview three young beneficiaries of the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust, which last year supported over 2,000 young people through training, mentoring, bursaries and other activities.
Stephen’s father Neville Lawrence, 76, announced last week he had made the decision to forgive his son’s killers. He said: “The fact that I had to lose my first child has been devastating. I can’t begin to explain the pain and the anguish me and my family have suffered over the past 25 years.”
Scotland Yard has admitted it has no new lines of inquiry in the investigation into Stephen’s murder.
Two of the group of up to six thugs who attacked the teenager and his friend Duwayne Brooks, simply because they were black, have been convicted of murder.
David Norris, 41, and Gary Dobson, 42, are both serving life sentences. Three other men who have consistently been accused of the killing but never convicted are Jamie Acourt, 41, from Bexley, his brother Neil Acourt, 42, who uses his mother’s maiden name Stuart, and Luke Knight, 41, both from Eltham.
