Home Secretary
David Blunkett is likely to be served with a High Court writ within weeks
challenging his refusal to launch a public inquiry into the murder of a private
detective 17 years ago.
Daniel Morgan, 37, who grew up in Wales, was axed to death in the car park of
a London pub. His family is convinced he had uncovered evidence of police
corruption and that police officers were implicated in his murder.
There have been four separate police investigations into the killing. After
the first, six people, including three serving police officers, were questioned
and released without charge. Three people, including Mr Morgan’s business
partner Jonathan Rees, were later charged with murder, but the case was
discontinued before trial.
In June, Home Office Minister Hazel Blears wrote to the Morgan family’s
solicitor turning down a call for a public inquiry. Now solicitor Raju Bhatt
is awaiting confirmation of public funding for a judicial review. In his
original submission to the Home Secretary, Mr Bhatt wrote, “The background
to Daniel’s murder and the investigations into it is complex and murky.
No one has been tried or convicted of the murder. The only form of public
scrutiny that the murder has received was in the form of the inquest which
culminated in a verdict of unlawful killing on April 18 1988. In the course
of that inquest, serious allegations were made under oath of involvement by
officers of the Metropolitan Police, first, in Daniel’s murder and, then,
in covering up that police involvement in the course of subsequent investigations
into the murder.
Those responsible for the Zinzan/Cook investigation - Det Chief Supt David Cook
and Det Supt David Zinzan - have expressed to Daniel’s family their strong
view that the evidence they obtained should have resulted in a prosecution of
the primary actors in the murder. When they learnt that the Crown Prosecution
Service had declined to prosecute, in September 2003, they insisted that they
did not agree with the decision but had to accept it.
“We say a public inquiry should be held under the same section of
the Police Act 1996 that resulted in a public inquiry into the murder of Stephen
Lawrence. Mr Blunkett had misdirected himself on the facts, in law, and was in
breach of obligations under the Human Rights Act,” he claimed.
