The family of the murdered London teenager, Stephen Lawrence, have criticised the Police Complaints Authority's decision to hand down the minimum punishment available to a senior police officer involved in the investigation of their son's murder.
Det Insp Ben Bullock (51), who will retire from the Metropolitan Police today due to ill health, was found guilty of two elements of four neglect-of-duty charges relating to the 1993 investigation into Mr Lawrence's death following a 2 1/2 week private hearing which concluded yesterday. He received a formal caution, which the Metropolitan Police Federation, the union representing London's police officers, said amounted to "practically nothing".
Mr Neville Lawrence, Stephen's father, criticised the ruling and challenged the British government to bring the police force under the terms of the Race Relations Act and establish an independent tribunal to investigate police behaviour. "Until we do that," Mr Lawrence said, "officers like this will get away with, I call it murder. I feel it's really sad. As far as I'm concerned, as my family are concerned, he's guilty on all counts. This man should have done his work . . ."
The Police Complaints Authority decided that Mr Bullock, who was second-in-command of the investigation, was guilty of failing to properly brief officers carrying out a search of suspects' homes after Mr Lawrence was stabbed to death at a bus-stop in Eltham, south-east London, on April 22nd, 1993. He also failed to investigate fully an anonymous letter sent to the investigating team about the circumstances of the murder.
However, the authority said that if it had been in its power not to discipline Mr Bullock they would have chosen that course.
Four other senior officers who would have faced charges could not be disciplined because they had retired from the police force, but Mr Bullock delayed his retirement to enable him to face the tribunal.