Thirty years after Stephen’s murder, 25 years after the official inquiry, why won’t the Met change? | Doreen Lawrence

As we remember the Macpherson report, I rue the lack of progress. But I also think of my son and the goodness of young people like him

Where do we find ourselves, a quarter of a century on from Sir William Macpherson’s historic inquiry? It’s a difficult question to answer. Today, institutional racism in the police feels just as urgent as it did back then. It’s hard not to think that we haven’t covered as much ground as we should have by now – tomorrow marks 25 years since the report was published.

People tend to forget what led to the inquiry in the first place. In 1993, my son Stephen was brutally stabbed to death in a racially motivated killing. The investigation into his death was marred by “professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership”, the Macpherson report found.

As told to Lucy Pasha-Robinson

Lady Lawrence of Clarendon is a life peer and a social justice campaigner