The botched investigation into the murder of 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence set off six years of mounting public outrage. Even as the first inquiry, and the subsequent review, failed to yield answers - and a reluctant establishment insisted all was well - the pervasive sense took hold that there was something very wrong at the heart of policing in London. That public angst grew ever more palpable as the Macpherson inquiry, established by the Home Secretary, Mr Jack Straw, unravelled the tale of incompetence, neglect and sometimes hostility which greeted the quiet insistence of Stephen's parents, Doreen and Neville, on truth and some semblance of justice.
They had known the whole and simple truth of it from that night on April 22nd, 1993 when Stephen was set upon in an unprovoked attack and brutally stabbed to death. As the Home Secretary told a hushed House of Commons chamber yesterday: "There was only one reason for his murder. Stephen was black." That terrible truth - combined with natural human feeling for their loss, the mounting despair of Doreen and Neville Lawrence at the system's failure to do right by them, and their implacable determination that those responsible should be brought to book - created the phenomenon that became "the Stephen Lawrence case", as Britain largely united behind the plight of a black family.
Difficult as it must have been, it was only appropriate that they should be in the distinguished visitors' gallery yesterday to hear Mr Straw's response to Sir William Macpherson's findings.
But for all that, and that they had read the report in the privacy of the Home Office on Monday afternoon, it must still have been shocking for them to hear Mr Straw read aloud Sir William's indictment: "The conclusions to be drawn from all the evidence in connection with the investigation of Stephen Lawrence's racist murder are clear. There is no doubt that there were fundamental errors.
"The investigation was marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers. A flawed Metropolitan Police review failed to expose these inadequacies. The second investigation could not salvage the results of the first."
In a series of searing criticisms, the report slated the police for their "fundamental error" in not arresting the suspects swiftly after the murder. The claim of one officer to be unsure of his powers of arrest was quite simply "astonishing".
Another had been "insensitive, discourteous and unwise". The 1993 review was "factually incorrect and inadequate", and "no senior officer at any level tested or analysed" a report which was "flawed and indefensible".
Although a second investigation in 1994 was conducted with great imagination and sensitivity - and the report praised other officers who had been unstinting in their commitment to bring the killers to justice - the inquiry concluded: "Their efforts were not sufficient to overcome the catalogue of errors and basic incompetence in the handling of this investigation."
It was plainly heartfelt as Mr Straw declared: "The House will share my sense of shame that the criminal justice system, and the Metropolitan Police in particular, failed the Lawrence family so badly. The Commissioner, Sir Paul Condon, has asked me to tell the House that he shares that sense of shame too."
Sir Paul had also accepted the findings of the report, both as they related to him and the force he has led for six years. And Mr Straw confirmed he had asked him to continue in his post to carry forward work already commenced, and the agenda set out in some 70 proposals from Sir William, promising: "I will be supporting him and his successor in the work that lies ahead."
Away from the House of Commons the debate instantly raged about Sir Paul's intent to stay in his post.
Mr Michael Mansfield QC, who represented the Lawrence family at the inquiry, said the commissioner had resisted the two key charges - that the investigation had been incompetently handled, and that it had been affected by institutional racism - and it was therefore difficult to see how he could now be the agent of the radical changes proposed.
But Sir Paul insisted he had actually sought, and accepted, the new definition of institutional racism which can result from "unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and racist stereotyping" and declared his eagerness to initiate an era of change.
Mr Straw will announce a detailed action plan in advance of a full debate in the Commons on the report.
But the most sweeping changes to policing in 30 years will include an immediate inspection of the Metropolitan Police by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary, and thorough scrutiny of all unsolved murder cases; a new discipline regime; set targets for the recruitment, retention and promotion of ethnic minority police and civilian staff; clear performance standards to ensure effective investigation into racist crime; and wider recommendations for the criminal justice system including, controversially, a review of the rules on "double jeopardy".
But Mr Straw's biggest announcement was that the Race Relations Act would be extended to the police and all public services, so enhancing the power of the Commission for Racial Equality, enabling it to investigate what happens within individual police forces and other public services. For as Mr Straw observed, while companies and organisations in the private sector had long been subject to this legislation, "government has so far failed to keep its own house in order".
And that indeed conveyed the essence of Mr Straw's verdict. He wanted the report to act "as a watershed in our attitudes to racism"; a catalyst "for permanent and irrevocable change" across the whole of society; a testament to Doreen and Neville Lawrence; and the basis of "a lasting testament" to their son.