THE family of a teenager murdered by his racist cellmate won a legal battle yesterday to force the Government to hold an independent public inquiry into his death.

An inquiry was ordered after law lords unanimously ruled the Home Office was wrong to refuse the request. The ruling, by Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the senior law lord, comes after a fight by the family of Zahid Mubarek, 19, for a public investigation into his death at the Feltham Young Offender Institution, West London.

Mr Mubarek, from Walthamstow, North London, was serving three months for theft. He was due to be released on the day of his murder. The decision stunned senior Home Office and Prison Service officials who were confident of victory. The service said in a statement: “We are disappointed.”

Home Office lawyers were studying whether to set up the inquiry under the 1921 Tribunals of Inquiry Act, which allows police witnesses to attend.

Robert Stewart battered Mr Mubarek with a table leg in March 2000. A prison officer had given warning that Stewart was “very dangerous”.

A High Court judge ruled that the refusal to hold an inquiry was a breach of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The ruling was overturned by the Court of Appeal in March 2002 after judges said it had been established that the Prison Service was at fault and Stewart was convicted of murder.

But law lords said that they did not accept the Home Office argument that a further inquiry was unlikely to unearth significant facts. Lord Bingham said: “Those who have lost relatives may at least have the satisfaction of knowing that lessons learnt from his death may save others.”

Suresh Grover, an adviser to Mr Mubarek’s family, said: “It is a historic day for the family, who have been campaigning for more than three years for a public inquiry into the circumstances that led to Zahid’s brutal and racist murder. The Home Secretary could have ordered an inquiry in October 2001 when (Mr) Justice Hooper said there should be one.”

Mr Mubarek was a model prisoner who appeared to have no enemies.

Stewart, from Hyde, Greater Manchester, had a long record of offences. On his first visit to Feltham, an intercepted letter by him was found to contain a reference to “niggers”.

Martin Narey, then Director-General of the Prison Service, went to the hospital, met the dead youth’s parents and apologised unreservedly.

The inquiry comes as the service is to announce that Beverley Thompson is to be its next race equality adviser.

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