STEPHEN LAWRENCE: THE SIXTH SUSPECT

50-YEAR-OLD NAMED FOR THE FIRST TIME | WITNESSES SAY HE WAS THERE AT FATAL ATTACK | PROBE HIGHLIGHTS YET MORE POLICE BUNGLING | Key suspect cheats justice thanks to more errors by Met

- Martin Bentham

THE dramatic naming of a sixth suspect in the racist murder of Stephen Lawrence today left Scotland Yard facing new questions about its ability to deliver justice for black Londoners.

The Metropolitan Police confirmed that Matthew White had been arrested twice over Stephen’s murder in April 1993 after a BBC investigation named him as a suspect in the notorious killing.

The BBC said that White, who died in 2021 aged 50, had been present at the killing and matched the description of an unidentified fair-haired man seen by witness Duwayne Brooks at the scene of the crime in Eltham, south-east London.

The investigation said that a relative had tried to report White’s involvement soon after the murder but was only contacted 20 years later because of a blunder in entering the testimony into a police database. It further disclosed that a witness told the Met in 2000 that White had admitted being part of the attack — as well as testifying that brothers Neil and Jamie Acourt, who have never faced justice, took part — but detectives failed to corroborate the evidence.

It said the force had also failed to pursue a recommendation three years earlier that it should consider whether White had been present at the murder and reported claims by a detective involved in bringing two of Stephen’s killers to justice that former Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick had discouraged him from pursuing other suspects.

The revelations provoked an angry response and calls for a fresh investigation to establish if others beyond the two killers, David Norris and Gary Dobson, already convicted of Stephen’s murder, could still be brought to justice.