THE family of a woman gunned down by police officers in 1985 said yesterday they were “praying justice prevails” as the inquest into her finally gets under way on Monday. 

An investigation into the shooting of Dorothy “Cherry” Groce will begin almost 30 years after the shooting that sparked some of the worst riots Britain has ever witnessed. 

Ms Groce was shot by Met Inspector Lovelock in front of some of her youngest children during an armed raid on her home in Brixton, south London. 

The police were searching for Ms Groce’s older son Michael Groce who was not at the family home and did not in fact live there.

She was left paralysed from the waist down until she died at Kings College Hospital in April 2000 of an infection which resulted in kidney failure. 

Inspector Lovelock was cleared of a charge of unlawful grievous bodily harm in 1987 following a trial at the Old Bailey.

But undisputed pathological evidence is that there was a causal link between the police shooting in 1985 and her subsequent death in 2011.

Ms Groce’s son Lee Lawrence said: “We have had to carry the weight of what happened to mum for almost thirty years but we will not rest until justice has been served.” 

“I pray justice prevails.”

The Groce family were initially refused legal aid to enable them to secure adequate representation at the inquest but, due to a public backlash, the decision was reversed.