article: Lord Stevens is to be investigated over hotly disputed allegations of a cover-up of police corruption in the bungled Step-hen Lawrence murder probe. Last night the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said it will investigate claims that the former Met chief failed to hand over key information to the Macpherson Inquiry regarding the black teenager’s race hate killing. The watchdog probe stems from a complaint from Stephen’s father Neville Lawrence. Lord Stevens was deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police from 1998 to 2000 – while the Macpherson Inquiry report was being compiled – before serving five years as the UK’s most senior policeman. 'Cover-up': Former Met Police commissioner Lord Stevens (left) is to be investigated into allegations of a cover-up over the Stephen Lawrence murder probe in the nineties . Sparked new investigation: Neville Lawrence, the father of murdered Stephen Lawrence, made a complaint last October about the failure of senior officers during the Macpherson Inquiry . The complaint concerns a letter to the Macpherson Inquiry in 1998, in which Lord Stevens stated that no officer or former officer involved in giving evidence was under investigation for corruption. It is alleged that the letter included misleading information. However, last night sources close to the former Scotland Yard commissioner said he was vindicated last year by Mark Ellison QC, the author of an official report into the Lawrence corruption allegations. A source said: ‘Any suggestion that anyone from the Met would seek to withhold the truth from the Macpherson Inquiry at that time is completely untrue. Last year Mark Ellison wrote to Lord Stevens to say he had done nothing wrong.’ Last night, Channel 4 News – which revealed details of the IPCC probe into Lord Stevens – quoted him as saying: ‘Step very carefully, I’m not putting up with any more c**p about this.’ Quoting from a letter he received from Mr Ellison, Lord Stevens was reported to have said: ‘No one is suggesting that you did anything that was culpable in any way.’ Baroness Lawrence, pictured taking her seat in the House of Lords in 2013, described undercover police officers as 'disgraceful' following the findings of the Ellison review last year . The IPCC said: ‘We can confirm we are independently investigating Lord Stevens following a referral from the Metropolitan Police.’ The Met said that after it received ‘a public complaint in relation to Lord Stevens’ it made a referral to the IPCC last November. The Met’s statement added: ‘The complaint has been made in relation to Lord Stevens’s role as the then deputy commissioner and disclosure to the Macpherson Inquiry. Facing probe: Lord Stevens pictured in 2001 alongside Neville Lawrence, whose complaint has sparked the latest investigation . ‘This issue was raised in the Stephen Lawrence Independent Review by Mark Ellison QC, where he concluded there were defects in the level of information that the Metropolitan Police revealed to the inquiry.’ Mr Lawrence had asked the IPCC to look into alleged failures of senior officers, including Lord Stevens, to provide ‘full, frank and truthful’ information to the inquiry as well as claims that hundreds of files on past major police corruption probes were shredded. He welcomed the IPCC’s decision to investigate, telling Channel 4 News: ‘I’m hoping that this time they’re going to come back with a result that can help us to get further into the truth of what was happening during the investigation into Stephen’s death.’ It took more than 18 years to bring two of Stephen’s killers – Gary Dobson and David Norris – to justice and they were jailed for life in 2012. Also that year, Home Secretary Theresa May commissioned Mr Ellison QC to lead an independent review into whether there was evidence of corruption in the original Lawrence investigation, and whether evidence had been withheld from the Macpherson Inquiry. Last year she told Parliament that there were ‘serious concerns that… relevant material which would show corruption has not been revealed because it cannot be found or has been destroyed’. When the Ellison review reported last year it said one former detective, John Davidson, was suspected of corruption in the Lawrence case, in which he had a key role. Mr Davidson has always denied the claims. Long battle for justice: Stephen's mother Doreen, now Baroness Lawrence, and father Neville have been campaigning for more than 20 years . The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge meet with Baroness Lawrence, Stephen's mother, at the Stephen Lawrence Centre last month . Damning: In his 1999 report William Macpherson accused the Met Police of being institutionally racist . In 1998, five years after Stephen Lawrence was murdered in south east London, retired High Court judge Sir William Macpherson was appointed to head an inquiry into the killing. Macpherson led the review into the conduct of the Metropolitan Police during the murder investigation after the police's initial failure to apprehend the black teenager's killers. In his report, published in February 1999, Macpherson accused the Met of being institutionally racist but concluded that police corruption had not thwarted the case. However, he widely criticised the force's handling of the Lawrence case and said police did not carry out the investigation in an appropriate manner. He made over 70 recommendations, including to extend the number of offences classified as racist, make the police subject to greater public control and protect the rights for victims of crime. He also recommended that police forces increase the number of black and Asian officers, prompting the Government to pledge to increase the number of officers from minority ethnic groups from 2,500 to 8,000 by 2009. And he recommended that the double jeopardy rule should be abrogated in murder cases to allow a retrial upon new and compelling evidence – something which became the law in 2005 with the passage of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The Macpherson Report was dubbed 'one of the most important moments in the modern history of criminal justice in Britain' and credited with improving police attitudes to racism. Jack Straw, who was the Home Secretary from 1997 to 2001 during the time of the report, has previously declared that ordering the inquiry was 'the single most important decision I made as Home Secretary'. However, Home Secretary Theresa May expressed concerns in 2012 that evidence may have been withheld from the 1999 inquiry. She commissioned Mark Ellison QC to lead an independent review into whether there was evidence of corruption in the original Lawrence investigation and last year told Parliament that there were 'serious concerns that…relevant material which would show corruption has not been revealed because it cannot be found or has been destroyed.' Lord Stevens is now accused of failing to hand information over to the Macpherson public inquiry. He originally stated in 1998 that no officer or former officer involved in giving evidence was under investigation for corruption.
highlights: Mr Stevens accused of not giving information over to Macpherson inquiry .
  Today he told Channel 4 News: 'I'm not putting up with any more c**p'
  Was Deputy Commissioner from 1998 to 2000 when report was being made .
  It's almost 22 years since Stephen Lawrence was murdered in racial attack .
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