A report investigating allegations of police corruption in the
unsolved murder of a private detective is due to be published next week.
For the family of Daniel Morgan, who was found murdered in the car park of the
Golden Lion Pub in Sydenham, on March 10 1987, the report could herald the end
of their 19-year fight for justice.
The statement was ordered by the Metropolitan Police Authority last October
under pressure from Mr Morgan’s family after Met Police Commissioner Sir Ian
Blair admitted it was “clear” the first police investigation into
the killing was “compromised”.
The admission followed claims from successive police chiefs denying any
wrong-doing by the Met. Mr Morgan’s family, however, claim they conspired to
murder Daniel and then sabotaged the initial investigations into the killing.
The report is expected to extend ‘considerably beyond’ the questions posed by Mr
Morgan’s family and has been welcomed by Alastair Morgan, Daniel’s brother.
He said: “We welcome this openness on the part of the commissioner and look
forward to reading his report at the end of this month.”
The report will touch on the four investigations into Mr Morgan’s murder and
will be followed by a review of the case by an independent barrister with the
power to ‘indicate police corruption’ and recommend future prosecutions.
Speaking exclusively to the Bromley Times, he said: “This will be the first time
anyone outside the police has ever had access to the primary material in the
case and we know from the reports that things went badly wrong.”
“Things have already reached a point where a public inquiry is essential. It
should have begun a year ago because the cancer caused by what has taken place
is still spreading.”
“Daniel’s case is probably the most systematic and stubborn police cover-up in
the last 30 years.”
Successive police commissioners had always denied police involvement in the
murder of Mr Morgan, who was found in his car with an axe embedded in his skull.
In 1997 the then police commissioner Sir Paul Condon told the Home Office that
allegations of police corruption had all been “thoroughly investigated at the
time and proved to be untrue”.
And in 2004 Sir John Stephens’ office told Home Office minister, Caroline Flint,
that although the first Met investigation was not up to ‘current standards’ it
was up to the ‘standards of the day’.
However, the MPA revealed last week that Detective Superintendent Douglas
Campbell, who led the original investigation, believed it had been
‘fundamentally undermined’ by one of his own officers who had links to the
killing and was subsequently removed from the case.
MPA chairman Len Duvall said he felt “passionately” that further scrutiny was
required as there were “a number of unanswered questions which must continue to
cast doubt on the integrity of the police service”.
