SIR PAUL STEPHENSON

Sir Paul Stephenson yesterday declared he had deliberately moved the Metropolitan Police away from "identifying diversity as an end in its own right".

The Met Commissioner, who succeeded Sir Ian Blair last month, said he had cleared the force of its " institutionally racist" label.

Speaking at a conference to mark the tenth anniversary of the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, Sir Paul said pockets of "stupidity and bigotry" remain in the police nearly 16 years after the murder of Stephen, an 18-year-old black A-level student stabbed to death in South-East London.

He added that one in five recruits to the Met were from black and ethnic minority communities, and he no longer believed the institutional racism label was "appropriate or useful".

The Commissioner said he did not want "the Met to be distracted by the debate about institutional racism".

He added that Stephen"s murder was a " transformational moment" and what mattered was taking action.

Sir Paul said that Stephen"s murder and the response to it "has changed the Met beyond recognition". He added: "I can assure you that the case is not closed."

The report into Stephen's death labelled the Met 'institutionally racist' and made 70 recommendations for change. All bar a handful have been implemented.

But Stephen's mother Doreen told the conference that society was in danger of becoming 'complacent'.

She complained about the scrapping of targets on the recruitment ethnic minorities, and that black people are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched. (Sir Paul Stephenson)

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