Who are Stephen Lawrence’s parents and where are they now?
18-YEAR-OLD Stephen Lawrence was violently murdered in a unprovoked racist attack in a crime that shook the nation.
His parents, Doreen and Neville Lawrence, have fought tirelessly for justice for their son since his death in 1993. Here we detail where the pair are now.
Who are Stephen Lawrence's parents Doreen and Neville Lawrence?
Baroness Doreen Lawrence was born in Jamaica in 1952 and emigrated to England at the age of nine.
She completed her education in South East London, before becoming a bank worker.
Born ten years earlier, Neville also moved to Britain from Jamaica and worked initially as a handyman and decorator.
The couple met when Doreen was just 17, and they wed in 1972.
Together they had three children - Stephen, Stuart and Georgina.
The couple was propelled into the public eye after their son Stephen was fatally stabbed at a bus stop in South East London in 1993.
Their tireless campaigning led to reforms in policing and brought the world's gaze on to the "institutional racism" of the Met Police.
It wasn't until May 2011 that killers Gary Dobson and David Norris were finally found guilty of the murder - 18 years after the tragic death.
No other suspects were charged.
Thanks to his parents' tireless campaigning, a public inquiry was launched into the circumstances around Stephen's murder.
The probe found the Met was "institutionally racist" - and that this was one of the primary causes of their failure to solve the case.
Are they still married?
The couple divorced in 1999, six years after their son's death.
Neville has said of the split: “Our world began falling apart from the moment the hospital staff told us our son had died.
“For some reason that I have tried to understand, and can’t, we couldn’t reach out to each other.
"We stayed together for another six years, but from that day we never physically touched each other again.”
But at the time Doreen said the divorce "wasn't due to any pressure from the death of my son or the legal proceedings that we embarked upon in the last six years".
Where are they now?
Both parents are still active human rights campaigners, though their work is done separately.
Doreen Lawrence, now 68, was awarded an OBE for services to community relations.
In 2013 she was appointed Baroness and sits on the Labour benches in the House of Lords as a working peer.
Doreen founded the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust to promote a positive community legacy in her son's name.
In April 2014, she was named as Britain's most influential woman in the BBC Woman's Hour power list.
In January 2016 she was unveiled as the new Chancellor of De Montfort University, Leicester.
In April 2018 Doreen told the Daily Mail that the Met should stop their continued investigation into Stephen's death if they don't have any fresh leads.
Neville Lawrence moved back to Jamaica and lived a short distance from Stephen's grave, though it is not clear where he resides now.
In 2017 he was appointed the head of a new group holding the police to account over knife crime, and their relationship with London's communities.
The 78-year-old has agreed to serve as the chair of the community reference group, which was set up by the Metropolitan Police.
On Monday, July 13, 2020, ITV announced that it has commissioned Stephen, with the "full support" of Stephen's parents.
The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, which aired in 1999, depicted Stephen's tragic murder in a racially motivated attack at a bus stop in South London.
The new three-part sequel will pick up from 2006 and follow the Lawrence family and detective DCI Clive Driscoll as they put together an investigation that secures the conviction of two of Stephen's murderers Gary Dobson and David Norris more than 18 years after his death.
The show is set to air on ITV on August 30 at 9pm and comes a year after police investigating the murder of Lawrence confirmed that the case had moved to an "inactive phase" after they had exhausted all their lines of inquiry.
Now investigators hope that the series will encourage any potential witnesses of the crime to come forward.
Clive Driscoll, who led the investigation that saw two of Stephens murderers locked up said: “I’m hoping this drama will convince someone to come forward with a bit of the jigsaw that we’ve all waited for. Because people are out there who know what happened and I hope they are watching.