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Stephen review – Steve Coogan is the cop who cracks the Lawrence case after 13 years of lies

In this riveting drama, Coogan stars as DCI Clive Driscoll, who finally investigates the racist killing of Stephen Lawrence fully, underlining the extra years of agony his parents had to endure

A few lines across the screen sum up the dreadful story so far. “On 22 April 1993 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence was murdered in an unprovoked racist attack. The police failed to catch his killers. A public inquiry found the Metropolitan police to be incompetent and institutionally racist. In 2006, 13 years after their son’s murder, his parents are still fighting for justice.”

We begin in 2006, in ITV’s new three-part drama Stephen – scripted by Frank Cottrell-Boyce with every ounce of his customary compassion and intelligence. Stephen’s mother Doreen (Sharlene Whyte) gives a speech at the centre under construction, whose users she hopes will become her boy’s living legacy, and his father Neville (Hugh Quarshie, who also played him in the award-winning 1999 ITV docu-drama The Murder of Stephen Lawrence) attends yet another meeting with yet another group of reluctant officials, trying to secure a judicial review. They grant him a review of the case instead.

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