Racist violence returns to streets where Stephen Lawrence was knifed to death

"I know the bloke who done it," boasted the teenager surrounded by his grinning friends. "He only done it because the kid said the wrong thing to the wrong person."

Speaking over a garden fence yards from where a black teenager had become Eltham's fifth victim of racist violence in seven weeks, the swaggering youth was warming to his subject. "The only reason it got on the telly was because he was a black boy. Now piss off."

If a nation had been shaken to its core by the murder of Stephen Lawrence nine years ago, some people living only a walk away from Well Hall Road, where the 18-year-old student was found dying, have yet to recognise it.

In the latest recorded case, a man racially abused a 14-year-old boy before punching him in the head, breaking his jaw. Police were continuing to investigate the attack and believe the man, in his 20s, may have been part of a gang seen near by.

The 14-year-old is not the only victim. Since the start of July, one man has been temporarily blinded, another was stabbed, and two others were set upon by a group of white men armed with a knife and bottles.

Across the borough of Greenwich, reports of racial incidents to the police over the last year have increased from 738 to 892. The Metropolitan Police said it showed people had more confidence in reporting such incidents; families worst affected by racism are becoming increasingly worried about the renewed confidence and thuggishness of groups of young racists.

Lee Evans, 24, a systems analyst for an investment bank, visited pubs in Eltham only rarely because of the hostile atmosphere he encountered. But on 2 July, after playing a couple of games of pool at his local, he and his cousin were attacked as they walked home by men who had been following them in a car.

"One guy had a bottle of alcopop and was pouring out the alcohol so he could use the bottle," Mr Evans said yesterday.

"Another lunged at me with a knife, I managed to twist it out of his hand but I was smacked with a bottle and my jaw was broken. Somebody hit me again and I was smacked with another bottle and dropped to my knees. I must have been unconscious from then."

After the attack, he bore the mark of a footprint on his neck where he assumed one of his attackers stamped on him.

The men then chased after his cousin Kassim, 23, and attacked him leaving the semi-professional footballer with a serious head injury. The pair said they had never seen any of their attackers before.

Mr Evans remains at home convalescing, and starting to learn to eat properly, hampered by the metal plates holding his jaw together.

Since he has been at home, he has learnt from an old acquaintance that those responsible for the attack live only a few minutes away and are openly bragging about what they have done. Six people have been arrested.

His father, Chris Evans, 47, has started his own network called Street Whispers to collect evidence about the work of a small hard core of thugs he suspects have been inspired by those named as suspects for the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. He has already passed on evidence to the police. Mr Evans said he had seen groups of white youths driving in the area dressed in hoods like members of the Ku Klux Klan.

While police say recent cases show distinct differences, Mr Evans said he had been told that groups of young men meet regularly at one address in Eltham before driving around the area looking for people to beat up. "The problems in Eltham are certainly escalating. They are really serious racists," he said. The one difference since 1993 was that the police had been "absolutely brilliant".

The day before Mr Evans was attacked, a 30-year-old black man was stabbed outside a branch of the Co-op. A few weeks later, a gang of four white men attacked a 20-year-old before driving off. One tried to hit the man with a cosh but missed, another sprayed a toxic substance into his eyes and tried to stab him, ripping his jacket before they fled. The victim said later: "I was just panicking because they had a knife. I was afraid for my life."

Police said yesterday that, despite the reports, they did not believe there was an increasing trend of racist attacks. They pointed to the fall in the borough of Greenwich of reports of racially motivated grievous bodily harm cases from 13 to 10 over the last year, and actual bodily harm from 73 to 64.

Detective Inspector Mark Castell, manager of the community safety unit for Greenwich, said the number of racial attacks overall was going down across the borough, while the number of reported incidents was going up. "It worries me there are five victims of apparently racially motivated crimes but I don't see any underlying [upwards] trend."

As was the case at the time of the Lawrence murder, Eltham remains a predominantly white area. On one of the large sprawling estates one black family told their own story of being singled out.

The family, who declined to be named because they fear reprisals, have had paint thrown over one of their cars, their dog shot at by passers-by, windows smashed and eggs thrown at their home.

The mother, a retired nurse, has been pushed out of queues at the supermarket because people refused to stand behind a black person.

She met Jack Straw, when he was Home Secretary, to try to address the problems and now wants to leave the area, although her husband refuses to bow to the racists.

Last year, her husband saw a young man throw a can of beer into his garden. When he challenged him to pick it up, he was attacked with a fence post and then butted in the face. The attacker was taken to court and fined but remains in the area and the family regularly see him in the street.

The police have provided locks but little else, she said. At the family home yesterday, the woman pointed to the seven locks and chains that they have had fitted on their door. "We used to report a lot to the police but we stopped because nothing was done," she said.

"We are the only black family around here, I feel so isolated but why should we run? Yet we lock ourselves in.

"We thought the longer we stay it was going to go away but it's not going away. In the last couple of months it's got worse. I am so frightened for my son, who is coming to visit. He was a marine – if they try to attack him, he is going to kill them."

They have changed their telephone number after a series of racist telephone calls. But while the mother appears almost resigned to the attacks, one of her two daughters is angry and wants to move.

The daughter said: "We have always had to struggle, it's always about trying to break down the barriers. But we've been living here for 25 years plus and we're still going through the same crap. You don't expect to have to defend yourself when you're at home."

She said the attacks happened more often when their father was away – signalled by the fact his car was unmoved for a couple of days. "It is as if they were observing, they knew best when to hit us," she said.

She has had enough of growing up and living in a place that remains inextricably linked with the death of Stephen Lawrence. When she is asked where she's from, Eltham is never the reply.