The unsolved murder of a private detective is at the centre of a new inquiry
into alleged police corruption.
Officers have reopened the files on Daniel Morgan, found with an axe
embedded in his skull in a South London pub car park 10 years ago.
The investigation follows an anonymous tip-off made to a new internal
confidential hotline.
Detectives in the initial murder inquiry believed Mr Morgan was killed because
he was about to expose police corruption.
But two officers arrested at the time later received substantial damages for
wrongful arrest and false imprisonment.
The new investigation is looking at the activities of a senior police officer
who is still serving and several retired detectives, some of whom held key
positions while they were at Scotland Yard.
The allegations are that police officers have co-operated with prominent
criminal families over the sale of stolen property, laundering of drugs money
and the selling of confidential information about criminals.
They are being treated so seriously by Yard senior officers that one detective
who is a key witness has been told to stay at home under surveillance for his
own safety.
Locks on his house have been changed and a sophisticated alarm system linked to
the nearest police station has been installed at police expense to protect him
from any attempt by the underworld to silence him.
Investigators examining the allegations have also interviewed convicted drug
smuggler Kevin Cressey in prison.
It was Cressey who brought down the corrupt drug squad detective John Donald,
jailed for 11 years last summer.
Cressey, now serving seven years for bribing Donald, was a police informant and
at one stage acted as a link between the corrupt detective and Brinks-Mat money
launderer Kenneth Noye in a conspiracy involving a multi-million-pound
drug-running operation.
The wide-ranging investigation is also taking a fresh look at the circumstances
surrounding the suicide of Detective Constable Alan ‘Taffy’ Holmes.
Holmes was an incorruptible officer who killed himself in 1987 rather than give
evidence about his knowledge of bribes being offered.
