Daniel Morgan: ‘I don’t accept police apologies’ over corruption, son says

Report findings accusing Met of ‘institutional corruption’ a ‘national shame’, son says

Daniel Morgan was killed with an axe in the car park of a pub in Sydenham in 1987 (PA)

The son of Daniel Morgan has described the findings of a report into his father’s death as a “national shame” and said he does not accept the Metropolitan Police’s apology.

The report by an independent panel this week accused the Met of “a form of institutional corruption” for concealing or denying failings over the unsolved murder of the private detective.

Morgan was killed with an axe in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, southeast London, in 1987.

Despite five police inquiries and an inquest, no one has been brought to justice over his death.

The force admitted in 2011 that the grossly inadequate first investigation into Morgan’s murder, during which the murder scene was not searched and was left unguarded, had been hampered by corruption.

Morgan’s son, also named Daniel, who was four when his father died, has criticised the Met for not accepting the panel’s findings.

“It’s a personal tragedy for us and a national shame,” he told the BBC.

“It’s difficult to feel proud of being a Londoner when the people who protect us have failed, and are allowed to fail and there’s no consequence for those failings.”

Met Police commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said it was a “matter of great regret that no one has been brought to justice and that our mistakes have compounded the pain suffered by Daniel’s family”.

But she hit back at the findings as she defended Scotland Yard’s work and her job.

Mr Morgan said: “I think we’ve heard enough apologies... what they’ve said doesn’t give us grounds for confidence that they can approach the follow-up work that’s clearly required from a document with such gravity.”

He added: “I just don’t see the Metropolitan Police as a credible organisation and what they say makes it to me feel even less credible.

“And, frankly, it makes me angry.”

Mr Morgan has previously declined to have his photograph taken or do a television interview, saying he likes to keep a “level of anonymity”.

The panel, led by Baroness Nuala O’Loan, found the Met put protecting its own reputation above finding Morgan’s killer.

“Concealing or denying failings, for the sake of the organisation’s public image, is dishonesty on the part of the organisation for reputational benefit and constitutes a form of institutional corruption,” the report said.

Mr Morgan said Dame Cressida “should consider her position”.

“A lot of this happened way before she was ever the commissioner but she is a continuation of the same culture, I’m afraid.

“The culture of the Metropolitan Police is cancerous and I think the only way that you get rid of cancer is you cut it out.”

Additional reporting by Press Association