Doreen Delceita Lawrence, Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, OBE

Her spirit, resilience and demand for a better way have genuinely changed an institution at the core of British life. Baroness Lawrence is the mother of Stephen Lawrence, a teenager murdered in a racist attack in South East London in 1993. Devastated by grief but determined to create hope, Doreen and Stephen’s father, Neville Lawrence, founded the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust in 1998 with the aim of promoting a positive community legacy in their son’s name. Doreen and Neville Lawrence wanted to ensure that future generations of young people would enjoy the opportunities that were denied to Stephen by his senseless murder. The trust has had a significant impact on criminal justice and social policy, as well as influencing the lives of the young people it has worked with.

In 1999, after years of campaigning by Baroness Lawrence and her family, a wide-ranging judicial inquiry was established to investigate the circumstances of Stephen’s death. It established that the Metropolitan Police was institutionally racist and that this was the main reason for their failure to solve Stephen’s case. Her ongoing efforts led to an investigation into claims of police corruption, and Baroness Lawrence has continued to campaign for justice for her son and other victims of racist crime in Britain.