Daniel Morgan

Case background and investigation

Daniel Morgan, a 37-year-old private investigator, was found dead on March 10, 1987, beside his car in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, south London. He had been struck in the head with an axe. Morgan ran an agency called Southern Investigations with a business partner, Jonathan Rees. Nobody has been convicted of the killing.

According to a timeline published by The Guardian, six people were arrested in April 1987, among them Rees, Detective Sergeant Sid Fillery, brothers Glenn and Garry Vian and two other Metropolitan Police officers. All were released without charge. Fillery had been assigned to the first inquiry and, the newspaper reported, had not told his superiors that he had done work for Southern Investigations. An inquest in 1988 returned a verdict of unlawful killing. Hampshire Police then took over the inquiry on behalf of the Police Complaints Authority; Rees and another man were charged with murder in February 1989, and the charges were dropped in May 1989 for lack of evidence.

Further Metropolitan Police inquiries followed from the late 1990s, including covert recording operations. In 2002 the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute after reviewing the evidence submitted. In 2005 the then commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, acknowledged that the first inquiry had been compromised, and a fifth investigation began. In April 2008 Rees, the Vian brothers and James Cook were arrested on suspicion of murder, and Fillery on suspicion of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Pre-trial legal argument opened at the Old Bailey in October 2009. The Guardian reported that the judge excluded three key prosecution witnesses in turn, that the case against Fillery was stayed in February 2010 and that Cook was cleared in November 2010. In March 2011 the prosecution offered no further evidence after disclosure failures, and the three remaining defendants were formally acquitted. All five men denied involvement throughout, and none of them has been convicted of any offence connected with Morgan's death.

The Home Secretary announced an independent panel in 2013. Its report, published on June 15, 2021 under the chairmanship of Baroness Nuala O'Loan, concluded that the Metropolitan Police had displayed a form of institutional corruption by putting the protection of its reputation ahead of candour about its failings. The force rejected that central finding at the time. In August 2022 the Independent Office for Police Conduct said its assessment of the report had identified no new avenues of investigation that could lead to criminal or disciplinary proceedings.

In May 2023 the Metropolitan Police disclosed that documents relevant to the case had been found in a locked cabinet at New Scotland Yard. On July 19, 2023, Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley apologised to the Morgan family, admitted liability for errors and corruption, and announced a settlement of the family's civil claim. The amount was confidential; The Guardian reported it understood the figure to be 2.25 million pounds including costs. CBS News reported at the time that a reward of 50,000 pounds remained on offer for information leading to a prosecution.