Met Approved Stephen Lawrence Friend Bugging

The man who was in charge of the inquiry into the murder of Stephen Lawrence authorised a secret recording of a meeting between the teenager's close friend, his lawyers and police detectives, it has been revealed.

Scotland Yard said Former Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Grieve, who headed up the Met's racial and violent crimes task force, gave permission for at least one meeting between Duwayne Brooks and investigating officers to be recorded - without Mr Brooks' knowledge or permission.

Eighteen-year-old Stephen was waiting for a bus with Mr Brooks when he was murdered by racists in Eltham, south-east London, in 1993.

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Fiona Taylor, who is in charge of the Directorate of Professional Standards, has written to Mr Brooks' solicitor Jane Deighton saying documentation authorising the recording of the meeting in May 2000 has been discovered.

The actual recording has not yet been found and is still being searched for.

Ms Taylor was asked to urgently assess what happened after it emerged at the end of June that the police had allegedly launched some sort of smear campaign against Stephen's parents, Doreen and Neville.

Following those shock revelations it was claimed that the police had made secret recordings of interviews between Mr Brooks, his lawyer and detectives.

Scotland Yard launched an investigation into those allegations last week. Nothing illegal has been uncovered so far.

Mr Grieve, who is now retired, has defended authorising the covert recording of the interviews at the offices of Ms Deighton, insisting it was done in order to protect the integrity of the evidence and make sure he was doing everything he could to find Stephen's killers.

Acting within the parameters of the law, he claims that if he had offered Mr Brooks and his legal team the option of recording the interview and keeping it, there would have been objections and the interview would have been quite different. His request to conduct the secret recording was approved by Scotland Yard.

But Mr Grieve has apologised for any "discomfort or dismay" the actions might have caused Mr Brooks and the Lawrence family.

In a statement, Ms Deighton said Mr Brooks was "going to take some time to absorb the enormity of the admission that the former DAC Grieve deliberately deceived him in the guise of providing him with victim support".

Former undercover officer Peter Francis, who worked with Scotland Yard's former Special Demonstration Squad, last month alleged that he had been told to find information to use to smear the Lawrence family, and spoke out about tactics that he said were used by the secretive unit in the 1980s and 1990s.

In the wake of his claims, Mr and Mrs Lawrence called for a public inquiry into the allegations, which the teenager's mother said made her feel "sick to the stomach".

Shadow minister for policing David Hanson said Mr Grieve's admission over the secret recordings "mean an independent inquiry is all the more needed".

"These differing accounts of secret recordings and the activities of some police officers surrounding the Lawrence case and Macpherson inquiry (the 1998 public inquiry into Stephen's death) make it more vital we get full disclosure," he said.

Prime Minister David Cameron has said he remains open to further probes into the allegations but has so far resisted calls for another full public inquiry.