Scotland Yard is reportedly to pay a £2m settlement after admitting that the investigation into the unsolved murder of a private detective more than 35 years ago was corrupt and incompetent.
Daniel Morgan was found dead in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, south London in March 1987 with an axe embedded in his head. No one has ever been convicted.
It is the most investigated case in British history. Five investigations by the Met have failed to yield a conviction.
Sir Mark Rowley, the Met commissioner, is reportedly expected to make a public apology this week for “corruption, incompetence and defensiveness” in its response to the murder and the Times reported that Morgan’s family will receive £2m, one of the biggest payouts in British policing history.
An official inquiry into the Morgan scandal which reported in 2021 found that the Met was “institutionally corrupt” and its commissioner at the time, Cressida Dick, was personally censured for obstruction by the independent inquiry set up to review the murder. The inquiry also found that the police force was more interested in protecting its reputation than finding out the truth about wrongdoing.
The findings of the independent panel were a victory for the decades-long struggle for justice by the Morgan family, during which they said they endured being “lied to, fobbed off, bullied [and] degraded” by those institutions they believed they had the right to rely on. Within hours, the Met rejected some of the report’s key findings.
The Met in 2011 accepted that corrupt officers shielded the killers and the panel said the inquiry into a murder that was probably “solvable” was undermined, perhaps fatally.
In late 2021, the Morgan family sued the force, launching their civil claim alleging misfeasance in public office as well as breaches of the Human Rights Act. The lawsuit alleged widespread wrongdoing as identified by the inquiry. Their claim raised issues dating back to 1987 and alleged wrongdoing immediately after the killing.
The reported settlement means the police force will avoid costly and lengthy civil proceedings. The solicitor for the Morgan family and the Met declined to comment.
This week Rowley will launch a new set of initiatives designed to restore trust in the Met after a series of scandals and proven wrongdoing against officers.
