1 hour ago
1 
When officers arrived at the home Dorothy ‘Cherry’ Groce on September 28 1985, her family weren’t expecting how much it would change London – and the UK – forever.
They were looking for her 21-year-old son Michael, believing he was connected to an armed robbery and was hiding out at the family home in Normandy Road, Brixton.
While she was in bed, and three of her six children were at home, officers, including one armed inspector, burst into the property, leaving the family terrified.
‘It was a loud noise that made me run down the stairs – by the time I got down there were three police dogs, police rushing everywhere and one of them had a gun,’ Cherry’s daughter said at the time.
During the aggressive confrontation, the armed officer shot Cherry, leaving her serious injuries. The 37-year-old was taken to hospital but later declared paralysed from the waist downwards.
As word of the shooting spread across south London, skirmishes broke out and escalated, leading to two days of protests and riots. Tensions were already high between members of the Black community and the police after a previous uprising in 1981.
During the 1985 riot, 43 civilians and ten police officers were left injured. Cars were burnt out, shops were set on fire, looting was reported. Photo journalist David Hodgson, who was taking a photograph of the scene when he was attacked, later died in hospital of an aneurysm.
While Brixton later returned to normality, the mental scars remained in the area for decades, and Cherry’s health never recovered. She later died in hospital in 2011 of kidney failure after suffering an infection.
Her youngest son, Lee, was just 11 when the police raided their home and shot his mother in front of him.
He said she had told officers ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t feel me legs’ after the gun was discharged.
After the death of George Floyd, who murdered by a white police officer in 2020 , the memories of what happened to Cherry came flooding back.
Latest London news
To get the latest news from the capital visit Metro's London news hub.
‘She would have been appalled at what happened to George Floyd,’ he told Metro. ‘It would have probably triggered trauma for her, especially as he said the same words as her – “I can’t breathe”.
‘I know she would want things to have been better and want us to have learnt from the past. She would probably be disappointed with how slow we’ve made progress but also want to acknowledge some of the progress that has been made regardless.’
After her death, Lee set up the Cherry Groce Foundation in 2014 to help those in the community whose voices have been unheard.
He fought for a full apology from the police for the shooting, after they initially gave her compensation but did not admit liability. The policeman who shot her, Inspector Douglas Lovelock, was charged with inflicting unlawful and malicious grievous bodily harm and later was acquitted.
Lee told Metro: ‘The uprisings in 1981 had a huge impact on the community, which I felt gave momentum to the second uprisings four years later.
‘In terms of what has changed since then, we had the Scarman report which highlighted the failures of police officers. Not everything was implemented by Lord Scarman’s recommendations, however, some things were, for instance, the Sus Law was scrapped.
‘Twenty years later, when the Macpherson report looked into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, many of the same recommendations were made all over again.’
The Sus Law, which was officially known as section 4 of the Vagrancy Act, allowed officers to stop anyone they thought was going to commit a crime. Met police officers disproportionately used them against the Black community, and they were finally scrapped in 1981.
In 2014, former Met Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe apologised for the wrongful shooting.
The acceptance of blame was prompted by an inquest which found that there were eight separate failings by the police during the raid and Cherry was unlawfully shot.
‘Could we see what happened in 1985 happen again? Yes, we could,’ Lee said. ‘The community will only take so much and we still haven’t fully healed from the wounds of the past so therefore it makes it very, very sensitive.
‘Any type of injustice, particularly against Black people, there is always a risk that we could have another uprising, and that it why it is so important we learn, we apply and hopefully transform.’
He urged young people channel their trauma into something positive.
‘Trauma is a real thing and has a real serious impact,’ he said. ‘Some hurt people hurt people, so therefore, I would like to say to the young Londoners, seek support and secondly in your attempt to heal from trauma find purpose.
Following her death, a memorial to Cherry was erected in Windrush Square, in the centre of Brixton, and a Blue Plaque was placed on the family’s former home.
Ridge Gunessee, 33, now lives at the house and told Metro he was ‘overwhelmed’ by its significance.
‘People come to pray outside sometimes and obviously being the 40th anniversary it’s really important to remember what happened,’ he said. ‘Things are a lot better around here now, but we should not forget.’
For Lee, his mother’s strength and positivity lives on in his mind, and remains a constant source of inspiration for him.
‘She never dealt with her ordeal with negativity; she tried to stay positive. My mum tried to be the best mother that she could within the position that she was in,’ he said.
‘I’ve taken on a lot of her values in terms of how I’ve dealt with this and I want what happened to my mum to stand for something.
‘I don’t want it to be in vain, and in order for that to happen I have to ensure that I do my bit to ensure that lessons are learned, implemented and that we see the benefits.’
The Colour of Injustice, by Lee Lawrence, is published by Abacus on October 2nd. His first book The Louder I will sing: A story of Racism, Riots and Injustice won the 2020 Costa Biography award.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].
For more stories like this, check our news page.
Bengali (Bangladesh) · 
English (United States) ·