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Tieng Anh Vui
A former undercover police officer says he took part in an operation to spy on the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, the Guardian has reported.
Peter Francis reportedly said his task was to find "dirt" that could be used to "smear" them in the period shortly after his murder in April 1993.
The friend who witnessed the murder and campaigners angry at the case were also targets, according to the paper.
The Metropolitan Police said it recognised the gravity of the claims.
Mr Francis, who spent four years living undercover in protest groups, also accused senior officers of deliberately withholding details of his role spying on the Lawrence family from the public inquiry led by Sir William Macpherson into the police's handling of the case.
A spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said the claims would "bring particular upset" to the Lawrence family, adding: "We share their concerns."
He added: "A thorough review and investigation into these matters - Operation Herne - is being overseen by Derbyshire Chief Constable Mick Creedon.
"Operation Herne is a live investigation, four strands of which are being supervised by the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and it would be inappropriate to pre-judge its findings."
'Astonished'
Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager, was killed as he waited for a bus in April 1993.
More than 18 years later, in January 2012, Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty of his murder by an Old Bailey jury after a trial based on forensic evidence.
Scientists had found a tiny bloodstain on Dobson's jacket that could only have come from Mr Lawrence, and a single hair belonging to the teenager on Norris's jeans.
Stephen Lawrence profile
Brought up in Plumstead, south-east London, the 18-year-old's family life was based on education and religious faith. Friends say he had a good and trusting nature.
He was born on 13 September, 1974 - the first of three children to Doreen and Neville who emigrated from Jamaica in the 1960s.
Neville was a carpenter, upholsterer, tailor and plasterer. Doreen took a university course and became a special needs teacher.
Stephen was studying A-levels in English, craft, design and technology and physics at Blackheath Bluecoat School.
He was keen on becoming an architect, and a local firm had already offered him a job.
He loved athletics and like many teenagers, liked going out, girls and music. He had never been involved in crime.
Dobson and Norris had first been arrested in connection with the murder just weeks after it happened, but the case against them collapsed.
A private prosecution against Dobson in 1994, launched by Stephen's parents, also failed and Dobson was acquitted.
In 1999, an inquiry chaired by Sir William Macpherson, a retired High Court judge, into the killing and its aftermath published a report accusing the police of institutional racism and making 70 recommendations, many aimed at improving police attitudes to racism.
Criticising the police, Sir William said he was "astonished by the lack of direction and organisation during the vital hours after the murder".
The Lawrences had been patronised, treated with "insensitivity and lack of sympathy", and kept in the dark about the investigation, he added.
But in 2011, the Court of Appeal concluded that there was enough new and substantial evidence to allow Dobson's previous acquittal to be quashed.
After Dobson and Norris' convictions, Stephen's mother Doreen Lawrence said: "I don't forgive the boys who killed Stephen. They don't think they have done anything wrong.
"They took away Stephen's life and there is nothing in their behaviour or anything to show they regret what their actions have done and the pain it has caused us as a family."
The then acting deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Cressida Dick, acknowledged that police believed there were five people involved in the murder, but there were currently no other "live" lines of inquiry.
In a statement read by his lawyer outside the Old Bailey, Stephen's father, Neville Lawrence, said the convictions were a moment of joy and relief - but he could not rest until all of those who killed his son were brought to justice.
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