Doreen Lawrence says it was deeply painful' to learn undercover police spied on her family

"The mother of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence has told a public inquiry that she found it deeply painful to discover that police had deployed undercover officers to spy on her family and their campaign to get his killers prosecuted. Doreen Lawrence said the police's priorities were completely misplaced and they should have been concentrating on bringing the racist murderers of her son to justice. Giving evidence to the spycops inquiry on Thursday, Lady Lawrence called the covert surveillance disrespectful and dehumanising."

"She expressed her disbelief at allegations that the police had sought to uncover information to smear her family in order to destroy their campaign. In a statement she described how the surveillance took place while she struggled to cope with Stephen's murder, care for her other children and earn a living. All the while I neglected my own wellbeing. I was simply surviving, she said."

"The inquiry is examining how undercover officers working for a Scotland Yard unit gathered information on her family and supporters in the 1990s while they campaigned to press the Metropolitan police to properly investigate the murder. The inquiry was set up after Peter Francis, an undercover officer turned whistleblower, revealed in the Guardian the existence of the secret monitoring. The failure to investigate Stephen Lawrence's murder in April 1993 has long been a seminal case in Britain's race relations, exposing the reality of institutional racism within the police."

Undercover officers from a Scotland Yard unit gathered information on the Lawrence family and their supporters during 1990s campaigns to press the Metropolitan police to investigate Stephen Lawrence's racist murder. Covert surveillance targeted personal matters including an undeclared separation from Neville Lawrence, and occurred while the family coped with the murder, cared for other children and earned a living, causing neglect of personal wellbeing. Allegations emerged that police sought material to smear the family and undermine the campaign. The surveillance revelations followed disclosure by an undercover officer turned whistleblower, Peter Francis. The case sits within wider findings of institutional racism and long-term undercover monitoring of campaigners.

Read at www.theguardian.com