Stephen Lawrence report: Detective allowed to retire ‘despite top officer raising fears’

 
Allegations: former detective sergeant John Davidson outside his bar on the island of Menorca in 2006. He took medical retirement in March
10 March 2014

The detective at the heart of corruption claims in the Stephen Lawrence case was allowed to retire on medical grounds, even though a senior officer warned he was trying to avoid disciplinary action and boost his pension.

Detective Sergeant John Davidson, who worked on the original murder investigation, is suspected of having links to Clifford Norris, a serious criminal.

His son, David Norris, was eventually found guilty of killing Stephen.

Mr Davidson, who is also suspected of behaving corruptly before and after he worked on the Lawrence case, took medical retirement in March 1998, a month before he was due to face a disciplinary tribunal.

He denies any wrongdoing and none of the claims against him has ever been proved.

The Met’s director of occupational health saw Mr Davidson on August 21, 1996, and considered there were “sufficient grounds” to justify a medical retirement. The detective had been in line for a special pay-off after complaining of noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus.

But Commander Roy Clark, the co-ordinator of South East Regional Crime Squad (Sercs), warned in a note dated October 14 that year: “Davidson is, in my opinion, attempting to avoid a Discipline Board and to obtain an enhanced pension in the process.

“I feel we should resist at all costs such a venture as it damages the image of the Police Service in the eyes of the public and does nothing to reassure officers who do not involve themselves in circumstances resulting in discipline hearings and are content to retire on ordinary pension grounds.”

On the day Mr Davidson and other officers were confronted by anti-corruption investigators, they all “went sick” and declined to be interviewed. Mr Davidson and three other officers then pursued medical retirement from the police.

The Met would not say whether Mr Davidson received an injury award of 20 per cent, as suggested in his medical report.

The details about Mr Davidson’s medical retirement were revealed in the Ellison Report into alleged police corruption and “spying” in the Lawrence case.

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Mr Davidson, who is now believed to run a bar in Menorca, was posted to the Sercs in April 1994, and during his time there is alleged to have engaged in corrupt activity with other officers.

While posted to Sercs, he was involved in the surveillance operation to trace and arrest Clifford Norris.

In April 1998, Mr Davidson was served a notice by the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry alleging failings in the handling of certain witnesses, including an informant, and failing in his liaison with other officers and in the interviews of Gary Dobson and Luke Knight.

Stephen was stabbed to death by a group of up to six white youths in an unprovoked racist attack in Eltham on April 22 1993. He was 18.

Dobson and David Norris were found guilty of his murder in 2012.

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