Talk:Murder of Stephen Lawrence

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Is there a reason the five suspects are not named in this article? I can't see any potential legal pitfall to recording the undisputed facts that they were the subject of prosecutions and were branded 'murderers' by the Daily Mail. ThomasHarte 13:07, 16 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

ditto StrengthCoach 07:45, 21 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

On two occasions its been attempted to try them for the murder, twice its failed. They are in the eyes of the law as innocent of this crime as you or I are to my knowledge. To publicly name and shame them would be inappropriate here I feel. And to use the Daily Mail image would not be allowed as their logo and article is copyright, and frankly thats just a poor work around so you can name them. I oppose naming 5 innocent people of this crime here until there is sufficient evidence for a retrial or likewise a successful conviction.

I agree with the above in terms of not naming them as murderers. It should be noted that the BBC has also [named] them as being accused of the murder. In the interest of Wikipedia consistency, if we can't list them as murderers, can we list them as 'accused' ? and if not, what steps will we be taking to ensure that Michael Jackson and OJ Simpson articles make no mention of any accusations of crime made against them too.

It's an interesting discussion; and I don't profess to have an answer.. If you want to see how this topic gets muddled up with ideology etc.. see the Oliver North talk page.

EasyTarget 10:58, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But that's utterly ridiculous. Mentioning them doesn't necessarily imply guilt. We have a whole article on Richard Ricci, whose only claim to fame is not being guilty of a famous crime. I'm sure the names can be mentioned in the appropriate context. It's not like we're talking about hearsay - these people have indisputably been put on trial or otherwise involved in the case --87.82.24.140 10:39, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The BBC has no inhibitions about naming the suspects and they employ lawyers who know the legal aspects of journalism backwards. Provided they're described as 'suspects' rather than 'murderers', I can't see a problem. Seeing as the suspects have declined to sue the Daily Mail for its famous front page, I can't see a problem even if we did.

"I oppose naming 5 innocent people" . The fact that a court of law did not find them guilty does not mean they are in fact innocent. They are a major part of the story. Clearly stating their names and the facts around the case is the way to go. Like a court of law Wikipedia should be NPOV. It is NPOV to say A,B,C,D,E were tried and found not guilty (due to lack of evidence), but Daily Mail named them as killers.

Is it possible to use this Daily Mail cover image in the article, or not? Sjjb 21:09, 8 January 2006 (UTC) [1][reply]

I would have thought that anything to do with the Daily Mail should be taken with a pinch of salt. What exactly is meant by the "undisputed facts that they were the subjects of prosecutions and were branded 'murderers' by the Daily Mail"? The inference seems to be that they were guilty, and should be named. But people are not convicted merely by being charged and then being told by the Daily Mail that they are guilty. From what I know of the facts, at least some and probably all of the five _were_ in fact guilty, but Idon't base that merely on the fact of a prosecution having been brought and the speculations of the tabloid press. If one is going to go into all that happened in the aftermath of the murder, one should also mention the blatant misjudgment (no doubt motivated by publicity seeking) of Michael Mansfield and Imran Khan in bringing the private prosecution against the advice of the police and CPS (there being insufficient evidence at the time to secure a conviction - thanks inter alia to the flawed initial police investigation). The CPS could have taken over the prosecution and then suspended it until (as seems now to have happened) better evidence including DNA evidence emerged. But then we know what the tabloids would have said - that the CPS stopped Mansfield and Khan obtaining justice. MacPherson ducked dealing with this tricky issue simply by saying that the double jeopardy rule should be abolished - as if that would encourage an improvement in police and prosecutorial standards (instead it would reassure them to blunder on with other ineptly presented prosecutions in the knowledge that they could have another crack at the whip if it went wrong).

Suspects

The names of the suspects ought to be added as they are in the public domain and they attracted most of the coverage at the time. I strongly feel that mentions of "parallels" with other racist murder cases are not inaccurate - the central issue of the case being the police's mishandling more than the crime itself - as convictions were secured in these cases. To suggest a "parallel" in the CASE (and not the crime)when the only common factor is motive carries a slightly disturbing racist subtext when the murder of a white is presented with the implicit suggestion that this is just the opposite equivalent.

Duwayne Brooks

I don't know much about this case but it occurs to me that it could possibly have been perpetrated by Duwayne Brooks. Was this ever looked into do we know?

He was never a suspect. If our not-so-wonderful Metropolitan Police could have pinned the blame on him, they would have done. Nunquam Dormio 16:16, 9 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Take great care. Without the reply, the original comment under this heading could be construed as libellous. This is something Wikipedia needs to look into or it will be crippled one day by a huge lawsuit. Ericatom 00:00, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

 Three or four people at the bus stop in Well Hall Road would have

seen any stabbing of anyone by Brooks.

External links

At the bottom of the page there is a adobe acrobat link to the site "Institutional racism and the police: fact or fiction?" however, none of the articles are dated and none of the articles are sourced to see where they come from, does anybody have any information on what year these publications were released?

The copyright statement says 2000.

'see also' section

sadly, stephen lawrence's murder is not unique. i hesitate to accuse people of homophobia without being certain, but it must be suspicious, to say the least, that someone would cut the obvious parallel with Matthew Shepard, inter aliabus. jamaissur ^{lemon or lime?}

I don't see the relevance of links in the See Also section; other murders of teenagers, some are not even British? There must be thousands of these all over the world. If there is a context in which they are relevant, perhaps it could be stated. Imc 13:01, 9 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

False statments of fact

Stephen Lawrence was not black. Like both parents, he was a mulatto.

The two, Lawrence and Brooks, had left the bus stop and walked some distance south before the incident began.

 They walked about 50 yards South.

No photo

 A photo does not appear in the article. It shows Lawrence giving a racialist salute

and wearing a shirt hinting at hashish.