
Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon OBE
Doreen Lawrence was born in Jamaica, but settled in the UK at an early age. At the time of embarking on a BA Honours Humanities Degree, which was later successfully completed in 1995, her first son Stephen Lawrence was brutally murdered on 22nd April 1993. Following a nationwide appeal, Doreen Lawrence set upon challenging the British justice system and the police force due to their appalling racist behaviour against her family - which resulted in the conviction of two suspects in January 2012 through the abolishment of the double jeopardy law (2005). Doreen Lawrence is the Founder and Life President of the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust - a charity that gives bursaries to young people to study architecture, in honour of her son Stephen who had high aspirations of becoming an architect. Doreen Lawrence was appointed OBE for services to community relations in 2003, awarded the Freedom of the Royal Borough of Greenwich in 2012 and received a life peerage in 2013, taking office in the House of Lords as a Labour Peer in October 2013 as Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon. Doreen Lawrence OBE was admitted as an Honorary Freewoman of the London Borough of Lewisham on 14th March 2014. On 22nd January 2016, Doreen Lawrence was inaugurated and officially welcomed as the Chancellor of De Montfort University in Leicester.