In pursuit of JUSTICE

Stars Hugh Quarshie and Sharlene Whyte on dramatising the fight to convict Stephen Lawrence’s killers

- STEVEN PERKINS

STEPHEN

NEW MONDAY / ITV / 9PM / EP 1 of 3 / DRAMA

On the night of 22 April 1993, 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence was murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus with his friend Duwayne Brooks in Eltham, south-east London.

His parents, Doreen and Neville, were determined to get justice for him, but the Metropolitan Police’s original investigation into his death made multiple errors, and a public inquiry in 1999 found the Met to be institutionally racist.

Doreen and Neville’s story was dramatized in ITV’s BAFTAwinning 1999 film The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, but at the time the program was made, not one of Stephen’s killers had been convicted.

ITV’s new three-part drama Stephen picks up in 2006, as DCI Clive Driscoll (Steve Coogan) leads a new investigation, working with the Lawrences, and makes a long-overdue breakthrough.

TV Times joined stars Sharlene Whyte and Holby City’s Hugh Quarshie, who play Doreen and Neville, for a video chat to find out more…

The series starts in 2006, at which point Doreen and Neville Lawrence had been campaigning for 13 years. What do they both make of DCI Clive Driscoll?