Plot To 'Smear' Family Of Stephen Lawrence

An ex-undercover police officer claims he was part of an operation to "smear" the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence.

Peter Francis said he was told to find "dirt" that could be used against members of the Lawrence family, shortly after the 18-year-old was killed in a racist attack in April 1993, the Guardian reported.

He was also asked to target the friend who witnessed the murder and campaigners angry at the failure to bring his killers to justice, the newspaper said.

Mr Lawrence's mother, Doreen, told the Guardian that there was no justification for efforts to discredit her family following her son's murder.

Scotland Yard said it recognised the seriousness of the allegations and shared the concerns of the Lawrence family.

The claims have surfaced as a result of a joint investigation into undercover policing by the Guardian and Channel 4's Dispatches programme, to be broadcast this evening.

Doreen Lawrence says the revelation 'tops' everything she knows

Mr Francis, who reportedly posed as an anti-racist activist in the mid-1990s, said he came under "huge and constant pressure" to "hunt for disinformation" to undermine those arguing for a better investigation into the murder.

He told the Guardian: "I had to get any information on what was happening in the Stephen Lawrence campaign.

"They wanted the campaign to stop. It was felt it was going to turn into an elephant.

"Throughout my deployment there was almost constant pressure on me personally to find out anything I could that would discredit these campaigns."

Mr Lawrence, an aspiring architect, was stabbed to death by a group of up to six white youths in an unprovoked racist attack as he waited at a bus stop in Eltham, southeast London.

The teenager's death sparked a change in how race crimes are investigated

In January 2012, Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty of being involved in the attack and sentenced to life  imprisonment, after a forensic review of the case found significant new scientific evidence on clothing seized from their homes following the murder.

Responding to Mr Francis's claims, Mrs Lawrence told the Guardian: "Out of all the things I've found out over the years, this certainly has topped it."

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper described Mr Francis's claims as "shocking and appalling" and called for Home Secretary Theresa May to seek a faster investigation into his specific allegations.

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