John Grieve CBE QPM is a retired Metropolitan Police officer whose career became closely associated with policing reform following the murder of Stephen Lawrence.
Although he played no part in the original 1993 murder investigation, he later became one of the Metropolitan Police's leading figures on race and intelligence. It is this role, rather than as the Metropolitan Police's first Director of Intelligence or Commander of the Anti-Terrorist Branch (SO13), that is relevant to the Inquiry.
His evidence to the Inquiry on 22 July 2026 is important because it concerns the Metropolitan Police's handling of intelligence relating to the Lawrence family and campaign, the work of the Racial and Violent Crime Task Force, and the relationship between senior management and undercover policing.
Grieve's evidence to the Inquiry was overtly critical of all Special Demonstration Squad surveillance of Stephen Lawrence's family and justice groups.
Below is a summary profile. A full profile will follow later.
Grieve joined the Metropolitan Police in 1966, serving largely as a detective and intelligence officer. He later became the Metropolitan Police's first Director of Intelligence before being appointed Deputy Assistant Commissioner and head of the Racial and Violent Crime Task Force (C024) in 1998. The Task Force was established during the Macpherson Inquiry to improve the investigation of racist crime and rebuild confidence among Black communities following the failures exposed by the Stephen Lawrence case.
Grieve became known as one of the Metropolitan Police's more supposedly reform-minded senior officers. He publicly accepted many of the Macpherson Report's conclusions regarding institutional racism and argued that policing required significant cultural change. When he retired in 2002, Members of Parliament praised his contribution to tackling racist crime and improving police-community relations.
In 1973, as a police constable, he was involved in a racist police raid on an innocent Black couple's home. Despite finding no evidence of wrongdoing, the couple were held for 10 days without charge, only for a judge at the trial to direct the jury to find them not guilty. Grieve expressed regret for the raid in 2016 when confronted with the documents relating to it by a BBC journalist in 2016.
Grieve's reputation was called into question by the publication of Mark Ellison QC's independent review in 2014. The review revealed that the Metropolitan Police had covertly recorded a meeting involving Duwayne Brooks, his legal representatives and detectives in 1999.
Grieve acknowledged authorising the recording, stating that it was intended to preserve an accurate record of Brooks' evidence because officers believed his account had altered over time. He later apologised for the distress caused.
The Ellison Review also raised wider questions about the Racial and Violent Crime Task Force's receipt and use of intelligence relating to the Lawrence campaign. Campaigners and researchers have argued that intelligence derived from undercover policing reached Grieve's command, blurring the distinction between investigating racist crime and monitoring a justice campaign.
Grieve's evidence to the Inquiry was overtly critical of all Special Demonstration Squad surveillance of Stephen Lawrence's family and justice groups.
This included those deemed legitimate targets by the Special Branch, such as the Movement for Justice (MfJ). He could not recall HN183 Richard Walton from the time, but thought his meeting with HN81 'Dave Hagan' regarding intelligence on MfJ - and by extension on the Lawrence family - was completely inappropriate and could not be justified.
He also spoke of the controversy and 'rage' from senior Metropolitan Police officers regarding the reality of 'institutional racism' he wrote with Julie French.
To be updated.
