- Adams accused of corruption.
- Lawrence case connection revealed.
- Fantastical informant saga unfolds.
The Stephen Lawrence homicide case involved a senior officer who, according to a confidential Met Police report, was corrupt.
An alleged corruption investigation that relied on the fabricated testimony of a man associated with the family of one of Stephen’s murderers exonerated Ray Adams.
The disclosure contradicts years of police denial regarding corrupt officers’ involvement in the case.
The Met has been requested to investigate the allegations, according to Mr. Adams.
Material will be reviewed before a determination of whether further action is necessary, the force stated.
Legal Reaction and Attorney’s Perspective
Stephen’s mother Baroness Lawrence’s attorney, Imran Khan, described the report regarding Mr. Adams, a former Met chief of criminal intelligence and former commander, as “dramatic, disturbing, and shocking.”
The 1998 public inquiry led by Sir William Macpherson into the assassination was not apprised of the connection between Mr. Adams and the informant.
The Metropolitan Police stated fourteen years later that there was no indication of a relationship between the two.
A racist gang of young white men murdered 18-year-old Stephen in Eltham, south-east London, in April 1993. The lack of success in apprehending the perpetrators instigated a widespread international outcry. In the end, two individuals were found guilty in 2012. An additional suspect remains unconvicted.
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Perhaps the most contentious police investigation of the last three decades, the initial inquiry has been the subject of corruption allegations ever since, both during a public inquiry in 1998 and an official review sixteen years later.
According to Imran Khan, he desires that the Metropolitan Police apologise to Baroness Lawrence and her family for withholding information, and that they confess to Sir William Macpherson’s inquiry that they misled that inquiry.
The August 1993 retirement of Ray Adams from the force was among those who were subject to examination. A significant internal corruption inquiry from the late 1980s had examined and exonerated him.
Adams’ Denials and Subsequent Revelations
Mr. Adams subsequently assumed the role of a senior officer in the south London division of the Metropolitan Police, where he oversaw the Lawrence investigation and briefly had direct involvement in the case.
The Macpherson inquiry found no evidence that he corruptly obstructed the murder probe. The classified assessment also found no evidence that Mr. Adams influenced the Lawrence murder investigation team.
Mr. Adams, 81, has denied corruption claims due to his absence of disciplinary or criminal action.
However, the clandestine Scotland Yard report concluded that he was corrupt and described in detail how the investigation that was conducted against him in the 1980s was manipulated.
The report recounts a dishonest antiquities dealer, covert police operations, and one of Britain’s most renowned crooks.
The 2000 Confidential Report
In 2000, the Metropolitan Police anti-corruption squad received a confidential report about Lawrence case officers.
It reached the conclusion that Mr. Adams was exonerated by the corruption investigation of the 1980s after receiving a “completely fabricated” account from a police informant with ties to the family of David Norris, one of the two individuals convicted of the murder in 2012.
According to the report, Mr. Adams or another officer must have “coached” the informant, as the informant’s false testimony discredited a witness against Mr. Adams. Such actions constituted “blatant attempts to obstruct the course of justice.”
In 1991, the informant, whose real name was David Norris, was murdered by a hitman. In the public inquiry into the Lawrence case, he was referred to as “David Norris (deceased)” to differentiate himself from the David Norris who would subsequently receive a guilty verdict for the murder of Stephen.
Criminal Bloodlines and Tangled Connections Unveiled
Stephen Norris, the assailant, was from a south London crime family led by his mobster father Clifford.
It was established that the informant had ties to the Norris criminal family.
In 1989, as informant David Norris was departing a meeting with a high-ranking drug dealer who was a relative of the Norris family, he was apprehended by the police. The informant disclosed to law enforcement that he was Clifford Norris’s cousin, although the veracity of their familial connection has yet to be established.
The narrative surrounds the informant’s involvement in a significant Scotland Yard corruption investigation. It leans towards the fantastical rather than the factual in the subsequent Stephen Lawrence murder inquiry.
It all began in July 1988, when Surrey Police detectives apprehended a handler of stolen products in Tooting, south London.
1988’s The Crooked Antiques Dealer
James “Piggy” Malone, the individual apprehended, was a verdant Dorking-based antiques dealer. He also managed a network of criminals who broke into southern England homes under orders to steal.
Malone was the objective of an operation that Surrey detectives had devised.
According to a confidential Scotland Yard report, Malone hurled a barrage of profanities at Ray Adams, whom he referred to as “Ken Noye’s mate” (i.e., the notorious gangster Kenneth Noye), upon his arrest.
By then, Noye had killed a Metropolitan Police officer with a slash and traded the 1983 Brink’s-Mat gold.
The report states that Malone initially offered to provide a statement regarding Mr. Adams, but he subsequently declined to cooperate.
In addition to supplementing the Met’s confidential report with additional information, they verified certain particulars.
Covert Operation Unravels: A Twisted Tale Emerges
Consistently straying into London, the Surrey team apprised the Metropolitan Police of their investigation, which necessitated help. Subsequently, however, the operation began to deteriorate. And it seemed that Malone and his assailants had acquired unexpected awareness of the situation.
Subsequent to the operational setbacks, the Surrey team devised an audacious strategy: they declared the investigation to have been halted, but subsequently recommenced it clandestinely—and proceeded to conceal this development from Scotland Yard.
Malone was visibly stunned and stammered out words that the officers interpreted as evidence that he had paid Mr. Adams. The new operation caught him, according to the newspaper and sources familiar with the inquiry.
The matter was thus escalated to the anti-corruption unit of the Metropolitan Police.
According to the 2000 Met report, following Malone’s apprehension, a senior Surrey officer recollected that one of their informants had previously stated that “Malone was carrying a high-ranking police officer by the name of Ron or Ray in his pocket.”
The Metropolitan Police “never fully developed” the allegation made by the Surrey informant, according to the report.
