Notts police vow to carry on tackling racism 27 years after tragic Stephen Lawrence murder

Stephen Lawrence was murdered in London on 22 April 1993, and following a public inquiry into the handling of the investigation, the Macpherson Report accused the Metropolitan Police of institutional racism in 1999, leading to police forces across the country making changes to their practices.

Today (Friday, April 22) marks the fourth annual Stephen Lawrence Day and 27 years since his death.

As part of the police service’s ongoing work, Nottinghamshire Police continues to run a series of programmes and initiatives to help improve the lives of young people across communities in the county.

This includes, the mini police programme, police cadets, engagement events delivered by the Citizens in Policing department and engagement activities carried out by neighbourhood policing teams.

Along with these initiatives, this week saw the first-ever in-person Live Our Best Life Awards ceremony, aimed at recognising the amazing inspirational work by young people aged between eight and 18 across the county.

The awards, organised by youth Outreach worker Romel Davis, were held in partnership with the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation, with Baroness Lawrence and Rt Hon Stuart Lawrence also in attendance at the ceremony.

The Baroness and Stuart were also treated to a tour of the new training building at the force headquarters and joined in on talks and discussions with officers.

Chief Constable Craig Guildford has reiterated the importance of remembering what happened to Stephen.

Mr Guildford said: “Today is about celebrating Stephen’s life and how we can carry on learning from what happened to him in order to better our society.

“It is vital that we don’t forget the lessons learned from Stephen’s case and that as a police service we continue to learn and strive to be better.

“Nottinghamshire Police is committed to working with communities across the county to make positive change by working with our outreach teams, recruitment officers and listening to members of the public.

“Many people may only see the visible side of policing in officers arresting and charging individuals after a crime has been committed.

“But one of the main parts of an officer’s daily job is community engagement and working with people from across Nottinghamshire in educating them, taking part in activity days, listening and helping them before any crime is ever committed.

“Education and engagement play a huge part in the police service and a prime example of this is the Live Our Best Life Awards, which took place this week (19 April).

“It is so important we work with young people and recognise all of their amazing achievements.

“We also had the pleasure of welcoming Stephen Lawrence’s mother and brother, Baroness Lawrence and Rt Hon Stuart Lawrence to the force headquarters and to the awards this week and it was great to be able to meet them and show them all of the hard work we are putting into working with young people.”