Stephen Lawrence's mother Doreen describes emotions on hearing guilty verdicts She told The Daily Mail: "I could feel my heart thumping and I was so shocked when the jury came back with guilty verdicts, even though it was what I wanted to hear. I felt myself well up straight away because it was so unexpected. There have been so many times over the years when I have built myself up only to be let down, so I'd tried to protect myself by not thinking about it. "I'm so many years older now and I was thinking: "Can my heart take it?" After the verdicts, I did a lot of crying; just thinking: "At last." "After the verdict I went home and lit a candle for Stephen and told him: "At long last, we have justice." There was no way I was going to give up, no way I was going to stop fighting on his behalf. I would have liked longer sentences, but the law is the law. The judge's hands were tied, but for the past 18 years we have just been existing, not having a proper life as we should. Mrs Lawrence added that she refused to let hatred dominate her emotions but said the hardest part of the trial was hearing of the moment her son was stabbed. However, her harshest criticism was for the police who, she said, missed key opportunities to arrest his killers. She said: "I will not allow hatred to consume me - it's an emotion that heats you up and makes it impossible to function - but I don't forgive them, no." She added: "It was so hard for me to hear how Stephen cried out, I presume when the knife, whatever it was, went in. I don't want to think about the pain he must have been in. She continued: "From the start they talked down at us. They seemed to think we were asking them for something special when all we were asking was for them to do their job. It was as if Stephen's life was worth nothing. He no longer had a voice, so I had to be his voice. He had his whole future ahead of him and it was just snatched away by these mindless young men.