Politics
Metropolitan Police accused of institutional corruption over axe murder of Daniel Morgan
THE Met was today accused of institutional corruption over the axe murder of private eye Daniel Morgan.
Commissioner Cressida Dick was among senior officers accused of placing “hurdles” in the way of an official independent probe.
The eight-year inquiry, ordered by former Home Secretary Theresa May and costing £16million, found the original murder investigation was riddled with mistakes and dogged by corruption — which the Met tried to bury.
Panel chairman Baroness Nuala O’Loan said the Met’s “lack of candour” by not confronting systemic and individual failings was “to protect itself”.
Dame Cressida was accused of denying access to the police computer system.
The report said: “Concealing or denying failings, for the sake of the organisation’s public image, is dishonesty on the part of the organisation . . . and constitutes a form of institutional corruption.”
It said the Met had placed greater emphasis on protecting its reputation than solving the murder of Daniel, 37, meaning his family “suffered grievously”.
The private detective was found dead in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, South London, in 1987.
Despite five separate probes, no one has been brought to justice.
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It is thought Daniel had been investigating bent police.
The Morgan family said they had been failed by a culture of corruption and cover-up.
They described it as “an institutionalised corruption that has permeated successive regimes in the Metropolitan Police and beyond to this day”.
