Timeline

Jan 1981: fire at 439 New Cross Road 1983: inquest - open verdict 1985: criminal investigation shut down due to "insufficient evidence" 1993: Stephen Lawrence murder 1997: New Cross investigation reopened 1999: Lawrence inquiry report published Jan 2001: police offer reward for new information May 2001: police announce "grounds" for fresh inquest

Over the years the police have been accused of making insufficient effort to find the truth.

The fire broke out on the ground floor of the house, at a joint birthday party for two teenage girls.

More than 200 people had been at the party, and about 50 were still upstairs when the fire was spotted at about 5.50am.

Local police received a call five minutes later and at 5.59am a fire crew arrived to find a blazing inferno.

Fourteen people died and many more were injured trying to escape down a drainpipe or by leaping through windows.

Despite the scale of the tragedy, the cause of the fire has not yet been established.

Firebomb?

The fire took hold extremely quickly. At the time, many believed it had been started deliberately in a racist attack, by a firebomb thrown through the window.

Joan Ruddock: Pushed for a reinvestigation

The forensic evidence did not bear the firebomb theory out and today there are few who remain convinced that racists were to blame.

But most activists and relatives agree that the police were not strenuous enough in their inquiries, and were too quick to discount the theory of a racist attack.

Nerissa Campbell, the mother of one boy who died and another who survived, said the police simply appeared uninterested.

"Not one word of sympathy was offered to us. The police officers who were originally investigating the fire were not interested in finding out how it started and who started it.

"When they interviewed the youngsters who survived, they were insensitive in their line of questioning and treated them as though they were criminals."

Brixton riots

The fire happened against a background of racial tension and poor community relations in the area, and accusations of oppressive policing.

The events were a catalyst for the Brixton riots

Campaigner John La Rose said the events had a "massive impact" on the black community.

Two months after the fire, an estimated 10,000 people - led by now TV presenter Darcus Howe - marched on Downing Street in protest at the perceived racist attack and the police reaction.

The fire, and the police's reaction to it, is widely held to have been the catalyst for the Brixton riots which exploded in April 1981.

Joan Ruddock, former Lewisham Deptford MP and current candidate for the seat, points out it was not just the police who caused anger.

She said: "I believe there was another kind of white crime committed. The failure of the establishment and the wider society to acknowledge the pain and loss of the black families.

"It is unthinkable today that such an event would not have been immediately marked in Parliament and that the Prime Minister would not have sent condolences. Yet, at that time, nothing was said."

Lawrence inquiry

Most activists believe things have changed in the subsequent 20 years.

Survivor Wayne Haynes: Angry that society at large was not interested

In particular, the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, which investigated police and institutional racism, is believed to have had a big impact.

The Racial and Violent Crime Task Force, which has been running the New Cross reinvestigation, was set up in the wake of the Lawrence inquiry.

It is thought some of the new evidence police have uncovered comes from witnesses who refused to talk before, possibly because of mistrust of the police.

But for some activists, a new inquest or even criminal charges will not be enough.

The New Cross Massacre Action Group is demanding a Home Office Commission of Inquiry into the matter.

It says: "Britain will take a great leap forward into a modern multiethnic, multicultural, multinational state and society when such outrageous incidents as the New Cross massacre are properly investigated, the truth uncovered and appropriate action is taken."