Yahoo News Stephen Lawrence's mother reveals she cannot forgive her son's killers in final TV interview on Loose Women
The mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence has revealed she finds it “difficult” to forgive her son’s killers because they have never admitted doing anything wrong.
Baroness Doreen Lawrence gave her final TV interview on Wednesday, 25 years after the 18-year-old was stabbed to death in south east London.
Speaking on Loose Women she said she is finally ready to “move on”.
The Baroness has worked tirelessly to challenge the British justice system and seek police reforms after her son was killed.
But unlike her ex-husband and Stephen’s father Neville Lawrence, 76, she did not say she could forgive those who murdered her son in Eltham in 1993.
She said: “It’s very difficult to forgive somebody who’s never admitted they’ve done anything wrong. Unless they come up in front of me or something I need to talk about, I don’t focus on them at all. I just think they’re not there.”
The Baroness said her focus “has always been looking forward”.
“I’ve got grandchildren now, they’re what’s important to me,” she said.
Founder of the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust (SLCT), a charity she set up from 1998 to give young people bursaries to study architecture in honour of Stephen’s aspirations, the Baroness said her other two children "kept her going" over the past 25 years.
She added: “Also to know that Stephen had a life and I needed to fight for him. That’s what I’ve been doing – his name, his legacy, what we’ve achieved over the years, the Trust, how it’s working to help other people – those are all the positive things, that’s what’s kept me going.”
Stephen’s mother and father campaigned for more than two decades to get justice for their son.
The Baroness was awarded a seat in the House of Lords in October 2013 as a Labour Peer.
However, she said she would rather have her son over her achievements in campaigning.
She said: “For me, yes it’s all great having all of those things, but I’d rather have my son. That’s what’s important to me. It’s great to sit in the House of Lords and I can ask government ministers all different questions and then being a voice for ordinary people. My voice was used for Stephen.”
The Baroness said 25 years is “a long time” to be campaigning.
“I’ve not really lived my life in the way I would have liked to,” she said. “I’m always asking some question; I’m always being asked to do something. Now, I just think, enough.”
She added: “I would like to be cheerful now. It’s time to move on now and look about me and my family and my grandchildren, so I can spend more time, positive things.”
David Norris and Gary Dobson are both serving life sentences, while three other men who have consistently been named as suspects but never convicted are Jamie Acourt, 41, from Bexley; his brother Neil Acourt, 42, who uses his mother's maiden name Stuart, and Luke Knight, 41, both from Eltham.
The initial investigation into Stephen's death was hampered by incompetence, racism and alleged corruption.
The botched case led to a major public inquiry and eventually a change in the law to allow Dobson to be tried twice for murder.
