Banner



PRESS RELEASE: TUESDAY 10TH MARCH 2015; 14:00
THE MURDER OF DANIEL MORGAN, POLICE CORRUPTION AND THE NEWS OF THE WORLD


Tuesday 10th March 2015 is the 28th anniversary of the murder of my brother Daniel Morgan. At 2 pm on that day, I shall hand-deliver an open letter addressed to Rupert Murdoch personally at News Corp’s London offices at 1 London Bridge Street, SE1. The letter will be published simultaneously on www.justice4daniel.org.

The murder
My brother Daniel, a private investigator, was brutally axed to death in the car park of a pub in south-east London in 1987. Despite five police investigations, nobody has ever stood trial for his murder. In March 2011, the prosecution of five men, including a former police officer, collapsed at the Old Bailey after police failures in the disclosure of evidence.
Following the collapse of the prosecution, the Metropolitan Police admitted that the first inquiry into Daniel’s murder had been “tainted by police corruption”, and that they were responsible for a repeated failure to confront that corruption over the subsequent decades. We believe that the police criminality in and around the murder extends to the highest echelon of the Metropolitan Police.

News of the World (NOTW)

In July 2002, after a witness appeal on BBC Crimewatch, the investigating officer on the fourth investigation, Det. Chief Supt David Cook, was placed under surveillance by a group of journalists/photographers from The News of The World. His home and family were photographed and he was followed as he drove his young children to school. Absurdly, The News of The World sought to explain this away by saying that they believed David Cook was “having an affair” with one of the Crimewatch presenters who happened to be his wife Jacqui Hames. She told the Leveson inquiry: "I believe that the real reason for the NoW placing us under surveillance was that suspects in the Daniel Morgan murder inquiry were using their association with a powerful and well-resourced newspaper to try to intimidate us and so attempt to subvert the investigation."

NOTW connections with the murder suspects

Two of the people involved in setting up the surveillance, Greg iskiw and Glenn Mulcaire, have since been convicted of criminal offences. They were amongst a number of senior NOTW journalists, executives and associates who had long-standing and highly questionable commercial relationships with two of the suspects charged with the murder in 2008 (Jonathan Rees and former DS Sid Fillery).

The Daniel Morgan Independent Panel

In May 2103, the Home Secretary Theresa May ordered a Hillsborough-style Panel of Inquiry into Daniel’s murder. The Panel is chaired by former Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman, Baroness Nuala O’Loan. Its terms of reference include an examination of the following questions:


• police involvement in the murder;
• the role played by police corruption in protecting those responsible for the murder from
being brought to justice and the failure to confront that corruption;
• the incidence of connections between private investigators, police officers and journalists
at the News of the World and other parts of the media and alleged corruption involved in
the linkages between them.


The Daniel Morgan Independent Panel is making a public appeal today for help from anyone who has information about Daniel’s murder.

In my personal letter to Mr Murdoch I will be appealing to him to co-operate with the Panel by allowing it access to all the archive files, email evidence, financial receipts and results of any internal investigations relating to this matter. I will also be asking him to encourage any employees - past or present - who can provide information on the connections between News of the World, police and private investigators, to come forward with information.

For further information, please contact my family’s solicitor Raju Bhatt of Bhatt Murphy on
020 7729 1115 or r.bhatt@bhattmurphy.co.uk.

See also the attached timeline and the following links;

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/feb/28/leveson-inquiry-murder-suspects
http://www.channel4.com/news/pi-murdered-for-plan-to-expose-police-corruption


Follow Justice4Daniel on Twitter
Follow Alastair Morgan on Twitter

Link to the website of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel
Return to the top of this page