A murder victim’s brother has met Home Office minister Hazel
Blears in the latest chapter of his 17-year hunt for justice.
Alastair Morgan, 55, and Chris Smith, MP for Islington South and Finsbury, met
the minister to persuade her to reverse a previous decision not to hold a public
inquiry into Daniel Morgan's unsolved murder.
On March 10 1987 Daniel, a private investigator, was found with an axe in his
head in a South London car park.
But despite four separate police investigations into the case nobody has been
punished for his murder and many of the family’s questions remain unanswered,
including the possibility of police involvement in the killing.
Mr Morgan, a translator who lives in Islington, told the Highbury & Islington
Express: “We visited the Home Office and had a 45-minute meeting with Hazel
Blears on October 20. She promised to carefully and seriously review her
position in refusing a public inquiry. We were told we would get an answer in a
few weeks.”
Daniel Morgan set up a private detective agency in 1982 and developed close
links with the police. Just five years later he was murdered.
But the Home Office has previously ruled out a public inquiry into the murder,
saying they do not believe a major matter of public order is at stake.
Early investigations resulted in one officer being removed from the murder squad
because of his links with Daniel Morgan’s partner. The same officer eventually
left the police and ended up running Mr Morgan’s business.
Mr Smith, who has been fighting alongside Alastair Morgan for 10 years, said:
“We did get a commitment from the minister to have a serious look again at the
case to see whether she would be prepared to call a full public inquiry into it”.
“Given that there are serious issues of potential police involvement in the
murder of Daniel Morgan and the subsequent failure to prosecute, it seems to me
it is in the best interests of everyone, including the Home Office and police,
to get the whole thing cleared up as publicly as possible.”
Alastair, who was born 11 months before Daniel, has vowed to carry on fighting
for justice even if the public inquiry request is rejected.
“There have been four murder inquiries and at the end the police have always
said 'sorry, we haven't been able to solve this”.
“If they think we are just going to say ‘thank you very much’ they can think
again.”
He added that 58 MPs had backed calls for a public inquiry and that a media
campaign - including a recently screened television documentary - was gaining
momentum.
