The Tricycle

Collected Tribunal Plays 1994-2012

Richard Norton-Taylor, Nicolas Kent, Victoria Brittain, Gillian Slovo

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781783195671
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: European Drama
• Index: Literature

From 1994-2012 Kilburn's Tricycle Theatre produced an extraordinary body of work that sought to engage, inform, and critique British and International Politics using verbatim testimony to respond to contemporary issues. Collected here for the first time are the complete 'Tribunal Plays'. 2014 marks the 20th anniversary of the Tricycle' sfirst Tribunal Play – Half the Picture. This collection celebrates a remarkable and enduring body of work. Contains the plays Half the Picture, Nuremberg, Srebrenica, The Colour of Justice, Justifying War, Guantanamo, Bloody Sunday, Called to Account, Tactical Questioning and The Riots. Also included is a brand-new round table discussion with Nicolas Kent, Richard Norton-Taylor, Gillian Slovo and the playwright David Edgar, charting the history and development of each show and the contribution the Tribunal Plays have made to political theatre in the last two decades, and a foreword by Guardian journalist and chief theatre critic Michael Billington.

THE COLOUR OF JUSTICE

BASED ON THE TRANSCRIPTS OF
THE STEPHEN LAWRENCE INQUIRY

Editor’s Note

THE LAWRENCE INQUIRY consisted of 69 days of public hearings. The evidence is still sinking in and continues to be debated in police circles, among lawyers, in Britain’s black community, and elsewhere. Sir William Macpherson and his inquiry team published their final report in February 1999, nearly six years after Stephen Lawrence’s death. Its conclusions will provoke further controversy. It may be years before its full impact can be appreciated.

The transcripts of the inquiry amount to more than eleven thousand pages, which I have distilled into about a hundred – less than one per cent. Inevitably I have had to make brutal choices about which witnesses and which exchanges to include. It has not been easy. I have not included the evidence of Detective Superintendent Ian Crampton who was in charge of the case for the first few days and took the vital decision to delay arresting five suspects. ‘One of the things I have to say with hindsight,’ he told the inquiry, ‘is that knowing what I now know I would have arrested earlier.’ He later conceded that the police had ‘reasonable grounds’ to arrest two days after Stephen’s murder.

I have not included the evidence of Detective Superintendent Brian Weeden, who took over from Crampton. He, too, failed to arrest, suggesting at one point that he did not have the authority. Michael Mansfield QC, the Lawrence family’s counsel, asked Weeden, ‘Do you not find it rather disturbing that it has taken all this time for you to recognise a basic tenet of criminal law?’, to which Weeden replied, ‘I think it is regrettable.’

I have not included the evidence of Sir Paul Condon, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, who apologised to Doreen and Neville Lawrence but denied that racism played a role in the investigation into Stephen’s murder. He urged the inquiry not to label his force as ‘institutionally racist’.

Also not included is the evidence of Imran Khan, the Lawrence family’s solicitor, who did so much to bring Stephen’s murder, and the police handling of the case, to public attention. Also this play does not cover the inquiry’s later evidence heard outside London.

I set out to include the most telling exchanges for a theatre audience, many of whom did not hit the headlines at the time but which reflect the interlocking threads which ran throughout the inquiry – police incompetence, conscious or unconscious racism and stereotyping, and the hint of corruption in the background. And I have included exchanges which reflect the personal tensions between the police and the Lawrence family – for example, Doreen’s anger when she saw Detective Chief Superintendent William Ilsley, who supervised the investigation, ‘fold up’ as he put it, ‘screw up’ as she said, a piece of paper she handed him containing the names of suspects.

Above all, I wanted to select evidence of the inquiry which presented as fair, balanced and rounded a picture as possible. It was not an easy task. But if it contributes to a greater understanding of all the issues involved, it was, I hope, worthwhile and valuable.

The Colour of Justice is the fourth of what have come to be known as The Tribunal Plays performed at the Tricycle Theatre in London. The first, in 1994, was Half the Picture, a dramatisation of the Scott ‘arms to Iraq’ inquiry, which was followed by Nuremberg and Srebrenica.

Richard Norton-Taylor
London 1999

Chronology

1993

Thursday 22 April 10:30pm

Stephen Lawrence stabbed to death.

Friday 23 April

A letter giving names of the suspects left in a phone box. Statements made to the police by various people about the attacks. ‘Grant’, a young man who had previously provided information, goes to the police station and accuses the Acourts of the murder.

Sunday 25 April

Neville and Doreen Lawrence approach Imran Khan to act as their solicitor.

Monday 26 April

Police surveillance of the suspects’ homes begins.

Tuesday 27 April

Detective Sergeant Davidson informed that an eyewitness, ‘K’, had been on a bus which passed the site of the murder.

Friday 30 April

More evidence obtained that the Acourts had been near the site of the murder on the evening of 22 April.

Tuesday 4 May

Press conference held. Neville Lawrence states, ‘Nothing has been done. There have been no arrests and the police won’t tell us what is happening.’

Thursday 6 May

The Lawrences meet Nelson Mandela.

Friday 7 May

The Acourts and Dobson arrested and made to appear in an identity parade.

Saturday 8 May

An anti-racist march held in protest at the British National Party (BNP) bookshop in Welling.

Monday 10 May

Luke Knight arrested.

Thursday 13 May

Duwayne Brooks identifies Neil Acourt in an identity parade.

Wednesday 19 May

Interview of alleged eyewitness, ‘K’.

Thursday 3 June

Duwayne Brooks identifies Luke Knight in a further identity parade.

June

After the date for the criminal proceedings is set, Stephen Lawrence’s body is released and buried in Jamaica.

July

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) drops the prosecution. The identification evidence from Duwayne Brooks is not considered good enough to secure the conviction of Neil Acourt and Luke Knight: ‘After careful consideration of the available evidence in this case, we have decided there is insufficient evidence to provide a realistic conviction.’ The five suspects are discharged.

October

Duwayne arrested and charged with criminal damage and violent disorder during the protest rally at Welling held on 15 May. Detective Chief Superintendent Barker brought in to review the police investigation. The Barker Report finds that the investigation had progressed satisfactorily and that all lines of inquiry had been correctly pursued. Later, in the inquiry, he admits that he intentionally covered up any criticism of Detective Superintendent Weeden, the Senior Investigating Officer. Later in the year the inquest opens, with Michael Mansfield QC appearing for the family. Mansfield asks for an indefinite adjournment.

1994

The renewed police investigation gives evidence to the CPS.

April

The CPS refuses to prosecute. ‘Despite the police’s painstaking and thorough investigation, we concluded that on the basis of the information available there ...