To Hazel Blears M.P. - Minister of State at the Home Office
24th January 2005
Hazel Blears MP
Minister of State
The Home Office
50 Queen Anne’s Gate
London SW1H 9AT
24th January 2005
Dear Minister,
Daniel Morgan
I would like to respond to you on behalf of my
family after our meeting on 20th October last and your written response to that
meeting.
The undisputed facts concerning the investigations into my brother’s death are
as follows:
1) The first investigation failed over a 15-month period to investigate five of the six
suspects’ alibis (including all of the police suspects); failed to
discover/ignored forensic evidence on the murder weapon; failed to protect my
brother’s body from theft after police had taken control of the crime scene and
failed to investigate interference with witnesses by DS Sid Fillery in the early
stages of the inquiry.
2) The second inquiry by Hampshire police concluded, incredibly, that the first
inquiry had shown determination to bring Daniel’s murderer’s to justice and
later charged an innocent man with the murder.
3) The third inquiry was conducted in secret after my family had been lobbying
for years to have the case reopened. We later learned that this inquiry had
failed to take advantage of a perfect opportunity to gather evidence on police
involvement in the murder. After this inquiry, and before we were fully informed
of what had previously taken place, DAC Roy Clark told us that the first inquiry
had been ‘honest and thorough’ and that the second inquiry had been
‘well-intentioned’. DAC Clark is now director of investigations at the IPCC.
With the best will in the world, it is impossible for us to draw any other conclusion
than that these inquiries were a cover-up by default of police involvement in Daniel’s
murder. The fourth inquiry, in our opinion took place under circumstances that also made it
virtually impossible to gather evidence on police involvement in the murder.
Also, it is clear to us that senior officers in the MPS have been misleading the
Home Office for years. I mentioned to you in our meeting that Jack Straw quoted
the former Commissioner telling him that the allegations had been thoroughly
investigated and proved to be untrue. Also, your colleague Caroline Flint told
parliament that the MPS had assured her that although there were shortcomings
the first investigation was up to the standards of the time. The government, it
seems, is now more than willing to accept these blatant untruths from our police.
Your decision condones these actions. This is particularly disturbing to us as
we believe that the way these investigations were conducted was a significant
contributory factor in the corruption crisis that later arose in the MPS.
We also feel that you are providing the MPS with a blueprint for avoiding the
consequences of the most serious criminal misconduct by police in the future.
We therefore have no choice but to issue a challenge to your decision and you
will be hearing from our legal representatives in the near future.
