The Metropolitan Police have apologised and agreed a settlement with the family of Daniel Morgan – the private investigator killed with an axe in a pub car park in 1987.
The settlement includes an admission of liability over officers’ response to the father-of-two’s murder.
Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley apologised “unequivocally and unreservedly” for failing to bring the killers to justice and said the family had been “repeatedly and inexcusably let down”.
It was rumoured Mr Morgan was about to expose police corruption when he was found with an axe in his head in Sydenham, southeast London.
His family have endured four failed murder investigations and two failed prosecutions.
Sir Mark said: “This case has been marred by a cycle of corruption, professional incompetence, and defensiveness that has repeated itself over and over again.
“Daniel Morgan‘s family were given empty promises and false hope as successive investigations failed and the Metropolitan Police prioritised its reputation at the expense of transparency and effectiveness.”
His statement said “no words can do justice” to the family’s suffering and that their campaigning had shown “multiple and systemic failings” in the Met.
The family were set to sue the commissioner, but the two sides went through formal mediation this month.
Sir Mark’s words are another damning admission of failings at the Met, coming soon after it had to again apologise over its investigation into the Stephen Lawrence murder.
Former commissioner Dame Cressida Dick also apologised in 2021 after a report into the Morgan case identified “multiple very significant failings” and “a form of corruption”.
It found evidence of a culture in 1987 which allowed “very close association” between police on the team investigating the murder and “individuals linked to crime”.
The report said the family had “suffered grievously” and the Met had failed “to acknowledge its many failings”.
Mr Morgan was killed in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, southeast London
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The police watchdog last year reviewed the various investigations into the murder, singling out lost opportunities in 1987 and 1988.
Although six men, including three who were then serving police officers, were arrested, it did not lead to any charges.
“The management of that initial investigation was very poor,” said His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary.
“And there was strong suspicion that at least some of those who were to be arrested were alerted beforehand through the improper disclosure of information (a ‘tip off’).”
Among other failings detailed in the 2021 report were “totally inadequate” handling of the murder scene – which was not searched and left unguarded, alibis not sought for the suspects, and evidence of police involvement in the killing not properly pursued.
