Bill Mellish: Former Met Police detective remarks on Stephen Lawrence documentary spark outrage

Comments called 'appalling', 'unprofessional', and 'insensitive'

A former Metropolitan Police detective has been criticised claiming Duwayne Brooks “ran away and left his mate” Stephen Lawrence in a new documentary about the 25-year-old murder.

Bill Mellish, took over the investigation in July 1994, over a year after the 18-year-old aspiring architect was stabbed to death in a racially-motivated attack at a bus stop in Eltham, south-east London in April 1993.

The five main suspects were Gary Dobson, brothers Neil and Jamie Acourt, Luke Knight and David Norris. Dobson and Norris were eventually found guilty of Lawrence's murder on 3 January 2012 and given a minimum jail term of 12 years.

Interviewed for the documentary, which re-examined the case, looking at both the police failings and the far-reaching impact Lawrence's death, Mr Melling said Mr Brooks "knows he forever will be the man that ran away and left his mate. He knows that.”

He added that Stephen's mother, Doreen Lawrence, now Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, OBE, "hasn't forgiven him."

He said: "They have never spoken ever since”. Smirking at the camera, he added: “I know they haven't.”

Social media users were quick to criticise the comments.

The Black History Studies’ Twitter account wrote: “'He’s known as 'the guy who ran away and left his friend'. Disgusting that this was even suggested Duwayne Brooks was not to blame.”

Another Twitter user added: “Even now, that man’s comment on how he ‘ran away and left his mate’ was insensitive and ridiculous about a boy, not a man, who was forced to run for his life and watch his friend die."

A third added: "BBC One the ex-met officer making comments about Duwayne Brooks is unacceptable, insensitive and unprofessional! He should be ashamed of himself."

Mr Mellish also came under fire for suggesting that Baroness Lawrence used the "gimmick" of refusing to smile.

“It was unrelenting criticism, not a smile," he said. "That was her gimmick, not a smile. I think aided and abetted by her legal team she was a formidable force. I don’t think in her own right she was ever a formidable force”.

One Twitter user said they were "absolutely disgusted" by the remarks.

"What does he expect her to do, smile and laugh when she talks about her Murdered son,” he said.

Another added: "Bill Mellish appears to have learned nothing. The gimmick remark breathtakingly insensitive."

Mr Mellish also that claimed it was "utter rubbish" to accuse the police force of institutional racism in the wake of Lawrence’s murder.

“I think one officer on the night [of the murder] formed, wrongly, the opinion that it was a drug-related murder,” he said.

“And I think on that basis and perhaps one or two other examples [they] branded the whole of the Metropolitan police as racist. Utter rubbish.”

Imran Khan, the solicitor who represented the Lawrence family during the public inquiry into the murder also condemned Mr Mellish’s remarks in The Guardian.

He said he had watched the documentary with Baroness Lawrence, who was appointed OBE for "services to community relations" in 2003, and she was similarly angered by some of the former detective’s comments.

“He went on to attack Lady Lawrence as ungrateful, saying she used as a gimmick a tendency to never smile; and that I and Michael Mansfield, the family’s barrister, were extreme leftwingers working to our own agenda,” Mr Khan wrote.

“Hearing those words felt like an almighty kick in the gut. I felt betrayed. I looked at Doreen; she gave a sharp intake of breath, then fell silent. It is hard to describe the shock. By the end of the episode we were both shaking with fury. We had assumed that Mellish, like us, had been enlightened by the Macpherson revelations. But, having left the Met, here he was, free to say what he really thought.”