Press Release
The brother of a murdered
private investigator Daniel Morgan has criticised the IPCC over the appointment
of former Met Deputy Assistant Commissioner Roy Clark as leader of the inquiry
into the shooting of John Charles Menezes, the Brazilian shot by police at
Stockwell underground station.
“The IPCC have forfeited the appearance of independence before a single
statement has been taken” said Daniel Morgan’s brother Alastair, “by appointing
a former Met officer of senior rank to investigate his former colleagues. This
is not the way to create confidence in a new watchdog. I am also concerned that
85% of the IPCC’s investigators were once government employees such as police
officers and customs investigators”.
“I doubt that the Menezes family will get truth or accountability from the new
IPCC”.
The Morgan family still have concerns over the failure of four police
investigations to resolve allegations of police involvement in Daniel Morgan’s
murder. Whilst serving with the Met, Roy Clark was in overall charge of a third
inquiry in 1998-2000.
“Roy Clark carried out this investigation almost entirely behind our backs” says
Alastair Morgan. “We still have concerns about this inquiry today. He also
misled us about the quality of previous inquiries and did all he could to stop
us getting fair access to a report from an outside inquiry into the murder. I
raised these issues with the IPCC Chairman Nick Hardwick when I heard of Mr
Clark’s appointment as director of investigations for the IPCC. Mr Hardwick
replied that he had full confidence in Roy Clark”.
The Morgan family’s MPs Roger Williams and Emily Thornbury have held a series of
meetings with the Home Office and Metropolitan Police Authority over the case.
They have also been granted public funding to challenge a decision by the Home
Office refusing to order a public inquiry into the murder. Since the last
inquiry ended in 2004, the family have forced disclosure through the high court
of two police reports on the murder.
“We strongly suspect after reading these reports that the failure to resolve the
issue of police involvement in Daniel’s murder has been by design rather than
police frailty or circumstances’, says Alastair Morgan. “I fear that this agenda
appears virtually all cases of state criminality or delinquency and that this
will continue until real independence is assured”.
The family’s MP, Roger Williams, has also spoken out in support of the family’s
concerns:
“The Morgan family and I are all too familiar with the lack of accountability,
transparency and independence of the police watchdog”. As far as we are
concerned, the so called sweeping reforms of the police force which took place
in 2001 and which created the IPCC out of the old PCA are merely old wine in new
bottles. How the government can argue that having 85% of ex law enforcement
officers inside the regulator will produce a fair and impartial judgement, I
simply fail to understand.
“The mishandling of the Daniel Morgan murder has left Roy Clark and his
associates with many serious allegations of police corruption still hanging over
their heads. Let us hope that the Menezes family are not subject to the same
fate.”
For correspondence with Roy Clark and more - see www.justice4daniel.org
