The Met Police have agreed a settlement with Daniel Morgan’s family – the private investigator killed with an axe in a pub car park in 1987 – and apologised over its botched investigation.
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”.
Mr Morgan was a partner in Southern Investigations and it was rumoured he was about to expose corruption at Scotland Yard when he was found with an axe in his head at the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, southeast London.
His family have endured four failed murder investigations, several smaller queries 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 over the case, 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.
The previous commissioner, Dame Cressida Dick, also apologised in 2021 after a report into the Morgan case identified “multiple very significant failings” and corruption.
It found evidence of a culture in 1987 which allowed “very close association” between police on the team investigating Mr Morgan’s murder and “individuals linked to crime”.
The report said the family had “suffered grievously” and the Met had failed “to acknowledge its many failings” in the case.
