Met devastated by Lawrence review - Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe
The head of the Metropolitan Police has said a damning report, which found officers had spied on the family of the murdered black teenager, Stephen Lawrence, is devastating for his force.
Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe told the London Evening Standard he had to ensure trust in the police was restored.
Met Commander Richard Walton, who was criticised in the report, has meanwhile been temporarily moved from his post.
The review has prompted a public inquiry into undercover policing.
It found that a "spy" working within the Lawrence camp had met Mr Walton - then an acting detective inspector, who had been seconded to the Met's Lawrence review team, responsible for making submissions to the Macpherson inquiry.
The report by Mark Ellison QC said it found Mr Walton's account of the meeting "less than straightforward to establish and somewhat troubling ".
Deputy Commissioner of the Met Craig Mackey has decided to move Mr Walton temporarily from his post as head of the Counter Terrorism Command to a non-operational role.
The Met has voluntarily referred the matter to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.
Earlier, Lord Condon, Met commissioner in 1993, said he did not authorise or know of "any action by any undercover officer".
The peer, who held the top post at Scotland Yard between 1993, when Stephen Lawrence was killed, and 2000, said: "Had I known I would have stopped this action immediately."
Lord Condon said he was "dismayed and saddened" by Thursday's findings about alleged police withholding of information.
He added that he would do all in his power to support ongoing investigations, and said he realised the "enormous anxiety and concern" the fresh allegations would cause the Lawrence family.
Meanwhile, the lawyer representing Stephen's mother earlier urged the Met to co-operate "fully" with the new investigation.
Imran Khan told the BBC police failings throughout the case went to "the highest level", and Doreen Lawrence wanted "heads to roll".
The Ellison review also found it could not be ruled out that corruption may have compromised the investigation into Stephen's killing in 1993.
It was one of several revelations to emerge about the Metropolitan Police's former undercover unit, the Special Demonstration Squad (SDS), in the review of the original handling of the case.
Stephen's father, Neville Lawrence, has expressed doubts that the planned judge-led public inquiry will be able to uncover the truth.
'Considered response'
The Ellison report found an SDS "spy" had worked within the "Lawrence family camp" during the Macpherson Inquiry, conducted in the late-90s to look at the way the police had investigated the murder of Stephen.
In his first response to Thursday's Ellison review, Sir Bernard told the Evening Standard it was "a devastating report for the Metropolitan Police and one of the worst days that I have seen as a police officer".
He said it had been "awful" to see the impact on Stephen Lawrence's family, for whom he had "enormous respect".
"I cannot rewrite history and the events of the past but I do have a responsibility to ensure the trust and the confidence of the people of London in the Met now and in the future. This will need a considered response to meet head on the concerns that have been expressed in yesterday's report," he said.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister David Cameron said he expected the public inquiry to get to the truth of the Stephen Lawrence murder case. He described Thursday's revelations as "very shocking".
"It should not have taken this long and the Lawrence family have suffered far too much," Mr Cameron said.
On Thursday, Home Secretary Theresa May told MPs the findings in the Ellison report had damaged the police and ordered the public inquiry.
"But this will get to the truth and will help us to make sure that we have the very best in terms of British policing which is what this country deserves."
'Complete honesty'
Earlier, speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Khan said that police failings in the handling of the Stephen Lawrence case went to "the highest level" but no officer had been held to account.
"What we want now is evidence... in the open, [and for] those officers to be either rooted out or to face, as Doreen wants, criminal prosecution. And indeed, as far as she's concerned, those officers at a senior level who made mistakes or otherwise acted improperly - for their heads to roll," he said.
Mr Khan also stressed that police had not been open with the original Macpherson Inquiry and there were now "serious questions to be answered".
"We want Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe to say with complete honesty [and] transparency: 'We are going to cooperate fully, we are going to give everything.'"
He added that while a judge-led inquiry would be able to order documents and witnesses, "you need to know those documents exist and those people exist who can answer questions".
"And what we want to ask Sir Bernard is, 'What do you have, have you given everything, or are you obfuscating as occurred during the Macpherson Inquiry?'"
The BBC's home editor Mark Easton said the latest revelations "mark a day of reckoning for Scotland Yard and potentially for trust in policing more generally".
'Vindicated'
On Thursday, Mr Lawrence told BBC Newsnight he had felt "devastated" by the revelations.
"To hear this being said on TV so the wider world could hear, I was vindicated.... if people had listened to us earlier on maybe things would have been different.
"From what happened with the Macpherson Inquiry, I'm very, very wary about what's going to happen now."
'Miscarriages of justice'
Stephen, a black teenager, was 18 when he was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack by a gang of white youths in Eltham, south-east London, in April 1993.
However, it was not until 2012 that Gary Dobson and David Norris were found guilty of murdering him and sentenced to minimum terms of 15 years and two months and 14 years and three months respectively.
Mrs May said she had commissioned Mr Ellison, and the Crown Prosecution Service and attorney general, to conduct a further review into cases involving the SDS - a top secret Met police squad that was operational until 2006.
She said it was vital to establish whether there had been "miscarriages of justice" in relation to past criminal proceedings involving SDS officers.
Elsewhere, the Ellison review also found that the Met's own hard copy records of a broad investigation into possible corruption had been subject to a "mass shredding" in 2003.
The "chaotic state" of Met Police records meant a public inquiry might have "limited" potential to find out more information, it warned
Separately, two animal rights activists who were jailed for firebombing department stores in the 1980s, are to appeal their conviction due to the alleged involvement of an undercover officer in their case.
Andrew Clarke and Geoff Sheppard were convicted of planting incendiary devices at Debenhams stores in Romford and Luton.
In 2012, undercover officer Bob Lambert was identified as having allegedly planted a third bomb in Harrow - a claim he denies.
The convicted men's solicitor said they will attempt to have their convictions overturned on the back of the home secretary's announcement about the review to find whether there were miscarriages of justice as a result of undercover policing.
