The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Paul Condon, has insisted he will not resign from his post, as the service braces itself to receive the most damning criticism of its record on race relations when Sir William Macpherson's report on the murder of Stephen Lawrence is published tomorrow.
Sir Paul confirmed his intention to retire in January 2000 in an interview with the London Evening Standard yesterday. He said if he thought his resignation would draw a line under the tragedy of Stephen Lawrence's death he would not hesitate to go.
As calls for his resignation escalated and opponents urged him to accept Sir William's description of institutionalised racism in the police force, Sir Paul launched another passionate attempt to answer his critics: "I think it [his resignation] would lead to a polarisation rather than a cathartic process. I have never, never denied that there was racism in the police service, and I've spent most of my career fighting it.
"This will set the tone of policing for the next 20 years. I hope, pray, anticipate, that the judge will say something very significant around institutional racism. I will embrace that with zeal. There is a critical mass, a mood for change in society. For God's sake, good must come out of the tragedy of Stephen Lawrence's death. I passionately want the enduring legacy to be reform."
At the judicial inquiry into Stephen Lawrence's murder and the police investigation of the case, Sir Paul had asked the inquiry team to "provide a rallying point" for reform by defining the term "institutional racism". It is its definition in Sir William's report - thought to include the phrase "unwitting" prejudice rather than deliberate - which police sources say could provide the commissioner with the opportunity to accept the term "institutional racism" and the report's recommendation that senior officers must do so to ensure policing by consent.
The parents of Stephen Lawrence, Neville and Doreen Lawrence, attended a private reading of Sir William's report at the Home Office yesterday. The commissioner also spent more than two hours at the Home Office reading the report.
In the Commons, the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, furiously condemned the leaking of extracts of sections of Sir William's report as he defended his decision to obtain a High Court injunction at the weekend to halt publication of the Sunday Telegraph article on the report.
Confirming that an internal inquiry was under way to investigate the leak, Mr Straw said the injunction, although varied to omit passages of the report already in the public domain, would remain in force until tomorrow.
In a stormy session in the Commons and with tempers fraying on both sides, Mr Straw told MPs "I greatly regret" that the injunction came too late to maintain the confidentiality of the report and he refused to rule out resorting to using an injunction again if he saw fit.
The shadow home secretary, Sir Norman Fowler, accused the government of attacking press freedom, describing its actions as "entirely unjustified and autocratic" with Mr Straw being forced by publishers into a "humiliating climbdown".