Met mess up again: Daniel Morgan murder documents found in old filing cabinet

Contains graphic discussion of murder

The Met Police have apologised after documents on the Daniel Morgan murder case turned up in a old filing cabinet. The unsolved 1987 murder of the private detective has long haunted the Met Police. Indeed, a 2021 inquiry accused the Met of corruption relating to the death.

At the time of his death, Morgan was working as a private detective. A BBC sound producer found him with an axe in his head in a South London carpark. Decades on, no-one has solved his murder. Some theories suggest he was about to expose corrupt cops.

Police found 37 undisclosed documents at New Scotland Yard in January. Subsequently, the Met said they should have handed a further 23 over to the inquiry panel.

The documents were in a cabinet which hadn’t been opened for years, according to the Met. As it is, the force has said it will assess the impact of the documents on the case:

The paperwork was found in a locked cabinet that had not been used for a number of years at New Scotland Yard.

A careful assessment has been completed to understand the significance of the documents and any potential impact.

Some of this material should have been disclosed to DMIP which published its final report in June 2021.

Met police apology

Assistant commissioner Barbara Gray delivered an apology to the panel and Morgan’s family:

We fully acknowledge how unacceptable and deeply regrettable this situation is.

She added:

We are working to understand what has taken place and any impact. We apologise to the family of Daniel Morgan and to the Panel.

Morgan’s brother Alistair campaigned for the truth about the killing. He tweeted about the Met’s behaviour:

My grief for my brother, I can see, has been encased for decades within an armour-plated shell of pure rage. This rage I needed, time and time and time again to stand up, again and again and again to the psychological torture inflicted upon us by the British police….,

— Alastair Morgan (@AlastairMorgan) May 11, 2023

Additionally, he said that the news reopened the pain and grief all over again:

Great relief now after having dealt with all of the media calls. Inevitably this dredges up a mass of very painful memories of our dealings with the police. It's like being forced to reopen a box full of demons.

All those years!

— Alastair Morgan (@AlastairMorgan) May 11, 2023

The Morgan case remains unsolved for the moment. However, what isn’t in doubt is the Met’s capacity for incompetence and corruption – or the impacts of its behaviour on people like the family of the late Daniel Morgan.

The fact is, no amount of inquiries will fix the Met, regardless of whether the documents have been ‘lost’ in a dusty corner or not.  Even in a very strong cast of bad institutions, it remains a contender for one of the nation’s very worst.

Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Manvyi, cropped to 770 x 403.