“If true, the allegations that have emerged in recent days would show beyond doubt that we are not just hearing the revelation that some police officers behaved appallingly to the family and friends of a murder victim 20 years ago. In the light of what has been alleged, many people are now concluding that significant numbers of police officers, including some at senior level, knew of, and approved of, what was happening. The belief that this was not just a few bad apples but a rottenness at the core of UK policing needs to be tested by a full, open and independent investigation, now.
“If it is indeed the case that a cohort of officers has been complicit in a prolonged cover up, hiding the truth from the Macpherson enquiry and from the groups both within the Home Office and UK Policing that were set up in the wake of Stephen Lawrence’s murder and which sought to address the structural failings in how we police our society, then the integrity of all that well intentioned work is called into question, and we would be forced to conclude that a conspiracy of silence has continued until 2013 to prevent the full truth from emerging.