4.08.11 PRESS RELEASE
DANIEL MORGAN FAMILY CHALLENGE HOME SECRETARY
TO ORDER JUDICIAL INQUIRY INTO HIS MURDER
Lawyers acting for the family of Daniel Morgan have sent today to the Home
Secretary a detailed submission setting out the grounds crying out for a
judicial inquiry into the case.
The murder of Daniel – a private investigator found dead with an axe embedded in
his head in South London in 1987 – has been the subject of five police
investigations. None has resulted in any effective prosecution or trial of
those responsible for the murder. An attempt to prosecute following the last
investigation collapsed after 20 months of pre-trial hearings at the Old Bailey
on 11 March 2011.
On 31 March 2011, Acting Met Commissioner Tim Godwin apologised personally to
the Morgan family and acknowledged publicly that there had been a “repeated
failure by the MPS over many years following Daniel’s murder to accept that
corruption had played such a significant part in failing to bring those
responsible to justice”. He added:
“We recognise that we have to take responsibility for the consequences of the
repeated failure of the MPS over the years to confront the role played by police
corruption in protecting those responsible for the murder from being brought to
justice.”
Daniel’s brother Alastair said today:
“For almost a quarter of a century, my family has done everything possible to
secure justice for Daniel and to expose police corruption. For much of this
time, we have encountered stubborn obstruction and worse at the highest levels
of the Metropolitan Police.
We have found an impotent police complaints system and met with inertia or worse
on the part of successive governments. We have been failed utterly by all of the
institutions designed to protect us. We have seen for ourselves a criminal
justice system which has proved incapable of coming to terms with the murder or
the subsequent criminality of those charged with enforcing the law.
In the midst of what is a tragic mess for my family, we recognise that those
responsible for the most recent prosecution, police officers and lawyers alike,
have done their utmost to redress the catastrophic failures of earlier
investigations. Nevertheless, despite their best efforts, the fact remains that
there has been no public scrutiny of the evidence available in relation to
Daniel’s murder.
We find real significance in recent and continuing revelations around the News
of the World affair in relation to the close relationships between NotW
journalists, corrupt police officers and some of those charged with Daniel’s
murder.
In that light, we call upon the Home Secretary now to order a full judicial
inquiry into this sorry state of affairs. We consider that the material placed
before her cries out for proper public scrutiny of the murder and its handling
by the police and the prosecuting authorities over the years. We know she will
need courage to ensure that there is such scrutiny - courage which we have found
to be signally lacking in her predecessors.”
Contact
Alastair Morgan
020 7608 3124
07917 698 109
Twitter
@justice4daniel
@AlastairMorgan
4 August 2011
Alastair Morgan