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Outlook: My 30-year fight for justice for my mum

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Lee Lawrence, founder of the Cherry Groce Foundation

21/04/2021 GMT

My 30-year fight for justice for my mum

BBC World Service - Outlook, My 30-year fight for justice for my mum

Lee Lawrence was 11 when his mother was shot during a police raid on their home

Lee Lawrence from Britain became his mum's carer for 26 years after she was shot and paralysed during a police raid on their home in south London in 1985.

Lee Lawrence was 11 years old when his mother, Cherry Groce, was shot during a police raid on their family home in Brixton, south London. The police had been looking for Lee’s brother, Michael, who didn’t live there at the time. The shooting sparked an uprising in Brixton – where tensions were already high between the many black residents and the overwhelmingly white police - and the event became known as the 1985 Brixton Riots. The police officer who shot Cherry said it was an accident and was acquitted of malicious shooting. For Lee and his family the impact of the incident was devastating - his mother was left paralysed from the waist down and Lee became her carer for the next 26 years. After Cherry died in 2011, he continued to fight for justice for her. Lee has founded an organisation in her memory called the Cherry Groce Foundation, which supports people with mobility issues. A memorial to his mum is about to be unveiled in Brixton. The book Lee has published about his family's experience is called The Louder I Will Sing.


Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com


Picture: Lee Lawrence, founder of the Cherry Groce Foundation
Credit: Smokin Monkey Photography

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