Daniel Morgan Independent Panel Report

Statement

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Tuesday 15 June.

“Daniel Morgan was murdered in London in 1987. It is incredibly painful for his family and friends that five criminal investigations into his brutal death have brought no successful prosecutions. In 2013, my right honourable friend the Member for Maidenhead, who was then Home Secretary, announced the creation of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel to review police handling of the murder investigations. The panel was asked to explore: police involvement in Daniel Morgan’s murder; whether anyone involved in the murder was protected by corrupt police officers; whether there was a subsequent failure to investigate corruption; and the incidence of connections between private investigators, police officers, the News of the World or other parts of the media. The independent panel has now completed its report. I am grateful to the panel and to Baroness Nuala O’Loan.

As Home Secretary, it was my responsibility to ensure that publishing the report was compatible with my statutory obligations in relation to human rights and national security. This was not about delay. I am pleased that no redactions were required. Daniel Morgan’s family have waited eight years for this report. It is devastating that, 34 years after he was murdered, nobody has been brought to justice.

The report sets out findings from its review of the past three decades. It is more than 1,200 pages long and in three volumes. It is right that we carefully review its findings. The report is deeply alarming: it finds that examples of corrupt behaviour were not limited to the first investigation, that the Metropolitan Police made a litany of mistakes, and that that irreparably damaged the chances of a successful prosecution for Daniel Morgan’s murder. The report accuses the Metropolitan Police of

‘a form of institutional corruption.’

Police corruption is a betrayal of everything that policing stands for in this country. It erodes public confidence in our entire criminal justice system. It undermines democracy and civilised society. We look to the police to protect us, and so they are invested with great power. The overwhelming majority of officers use it honourably, but those who use their power for immoral ends do terrible harm, as do those who indulge, cover up or ignore police corruption. This is one of the most devastating episodes in the history of the Metropolitan Police.

In recent years, several steps have been taken to combat police corruption. A new offence of police corruption, applicable solely to police officers, was introduced by my right honourable friend the Member for Maidenhead in 2015, to sit alongside the existing offence of misconduct in public office. The offence carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years. To prevent corrupt police officers evading accountability by resigning or retiring, the Policing and Crime Act 2017 enabled the extension of disciplinary procedures to former officers. It also ensures that if an officer under investigation for gross misconduct resigns or retires, misconduct proceedings can still take place and the officer can be barred from rejoining the police.

Last year, I overhauled the police complaints and discipline process. There is now a more efficient system for dealing with police misconduct. The investigation process is simpler and quicker, and an explanation is required if an investigation takes longer than 12 months. It is in the interests both of the police and of the public that corrupt police officers are exposed and innocent officers exonerated as swiftly as possible.

The Group of States against Corruption monitors countries’ compliance with the Council of Europe’s anti-corruption standards. This month, it published a report demonstrating good progress in the UK’s law enforcement to prevent corruption. But we cannot ignore the findings of this report. Its recommendations are wide-ranging and far-reaching across aspects of policing, conduct, culture and transparency in public institutions. Today, I have written to Dame Cressida Dick to ask her to provide me with a detailed response to the panel’s recommendations for the Metropolitan Police and the wider issues outlined in the report. This afternoon, I will also ask Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services to consider how best it can look into the issues raised.

The police are operationally independent, and the Metropolitan Police is held to account by the Mayor of London and the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime, but the police are accountable to Parliament through me. I intend to return to the House to update on progress made on this and other recommendations in the report once I have received responses from the Metropolitan Police and others.

There can be no confidence in the integrity of policing without confidence in the police watchdog. The Independent Office for Police Conduct has made good progress since it was formed in 2018, but questions remain about its ability to hold the police to account. In particular, profound concerns exist about the handling of the IOPC’s investigation into Operation Midland. The issues raised by the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel further reinforce the need for a strong police watchdog. I am therefore announcing today that I am bringing forward the next periodic review of the IOPC to start this summer. This will include an assessment of the IOPC’s effectiveness and efficiency.

Daniel Morgan deserved far, far better than this, as did his family. To them, on what will be a very, very difficult day, I say that the whole House will have them and Daniel in our thoughts. I commend this Statement to the House.”

First, I wish to pay tribute to the family of Daniel Morgan. It is only as a result of their utter determination to see justice done that the independent panel was finally set up, 26 years after Daniel’s horrific murder. Now, 34 years after his murder, we have its report, revealing appalling truths relating to the various police investigations that would never otherwise have been so comprehensively and forensically exposed; truths which make clear why still nobody has been brought to justice for Daniel’s murder, and probably never will be. The delay of eight years in completing and publishing the panel’s report only made matters even harder for the family, but it is to be hoped that its findings, justifying their determined stance, will provide some solace.

I wish to express our appreciation as well for the hard work done by the panel and for its report, and not least for the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan. It does not seem that the work it did, with the barriers it faced, involved an exactly smooth and stress-free process. The report is devastating in what it reveals about the conduct, role, approach and competence of the Metropolitan Police Service, which was found by the panel to have concealed or denied failings for the sake of its public image. It was found that this was dishonesty on the part of an organisation for reputational benefit and constituted a form of institutional corruption.

It is a conclusion that has already been abruptly rejected by the MPS as continuing to still apply, even though it has still to meet the Home Secretary’s requirement for the commissioner to submit a report setting out the Metropolitan Police Service’s response to the findings and recommendations of the independent panel. Would the Government say, first, when that MPS response has to be with the Home Secretary, and, secondly, if that written response from the MPS will be placed before Parliament, unamended and unredacted?

The overwhelming majority of MPS officers and staff will be gutted by the findings of the report. Certainly, my involvement with the MPS, as a participant in the parliamentary police scheme, left me with nothing but admiration for the way MPS officers and staff under- take their work on our behalf.

When the panel was set up by the then Home Secretary in 2013, it was expected to complete its work within 12 months of relevant documentation being made available. Instead, it took eight years, with the last relevant material not being forthcoming from the Metropolitan Police until March this year. The panel was not set up under the Inquiries Act, which would have given it statutory powers in relation to its investigation—not least over non co-operation—including powers over timely disclosure of documents and compelling people to appear before it to give evidence. The report is very blunt about the attitude of the Metropolitan Police Service towards the panel, saying that, at times, the force treated panel members as though they were litigants in a case against them. Can the Government say why the panel was left to carry out its work with one arm tied behind its back, as far as its powers were concerned? Would the Government also say if the Home Office was aware of the difficulties the panel was having in carrying out its work with the Metropolitan Police Service, and, if so, when did it become aware and what action did any Home Secretary then take, bearing in mind that the Home Secretary is accountable to Parliament for the police service?

My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady O’Loan, on her report and her patience. I apologise to the Morgan family for the way an organisation I was part of for over 30 years has conducted itself. The only points I wish to make are that this report chimes exactly with my professional and personal experience, that this report needs to be taken seriously, and that urgent action needs to be taken as a result. The Metropolitan Police puts its own reputation before openness, honesty and the pursuit of justice, and those who are telling the truth are ostracised and forced out.

Let me give noble Lords another example. In 2005, as a police officer holding the fourth highest rank in the Metropolitan Police, I gave evidence to the Independent Police Complaints Commission inquiry into whether the Metropolitan Police has misled the family of Jean Charles de Menezes after he was mistakenly shot and killed by the police following the London bombings. The then commissioner had told the media that both he and all those advising him believed for 24 hours after the shooting that Jean Charles de Menezes was a suicide bomber, when, in fact, five hours after the shooting, his closest advisers had told me that Jean Charles de Menezes was innocent. Noble Lords will recall the trial of the Metropolitan Police for health and safety breaches, where the Met digitally altered the image of the suspect it was pursuing to make it look more like de Menezes and claimed mistaken identity.

After an uneasy truce of about 18 months, I was side- lined from being in day-to-day charge of 20,000 officers to overseeing a project with 20 officers because the commissioner had lost confidence in me. He had done so because I told the truth. As a police inspector, I was told that I was too honest to be a senior police officer, and 20 years later I found out that that was true. That was the culture of the Metropolitan Police then, and this report tells us that it is the culture of the Metropolitan Police now. It highlights various types of corruption, including what it describes as “incontrovertibly corrupt behaviour”, such as selling stories to press contacts and planting false evidence.

I again join the noble Lords, Lord Rosser and Lord Paddick, not only in paying tribute to the family of Daniel Morgan but in their appreciation of the work of the panel.

The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, asked when the Metropolitan Police Service will respond to the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary has undertaken to update the House by the end of the year, so the answer to his question is “swiftly”. The noble Lord, Lord Rosser, talked about the obstruction in obtaining documentation. On the production of documentation and the funding required to carry out the work of the panel, the Home Secretary feels that the money and resources were sufficient to carry out the investigation. To date, some £16 million has been spent on this investigation.

On the relationship with the Home Office, I do not think that it has been smooth sailing. The previous Home Secretary, my right honourable friend Theresa May, set up the inquiry and it was never the intention that the relationship with the Home Office should be difficult. The Home Office has tried to assist the panel in whatever way it can.

I do not have to hand the terms of reference for the inspectorate, but I assume that that they would have been set up for the precise reason of ensuring that there is a full inspection. On the point of the term “and others”, I presume that one of the “and others” is the IOPC. On the duty of candour to be taken forward, as I said earlier, the Home Secretary will want to speak to the family and to progress matters after that.

I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, whether the Government will ensure that such a tragedy and miscarriage of justice never happen again and that the police cannot get away with impunity. I said earlier that Section 35 of the Inquiries Act 2005 makes it an offence to commit acts that are intended to have the effect of distorting, altering or preventing evidence being given to a statutory inquiry, although this was not a statutory inquiry, and I understand that. However, it is an offence intentionally to suppress, conceal or destroy a relevant document.

We come now to the 20 minutes allocated to Back-Bench questions. I ask that questions and answers be brief so that I can call the maximum number of speakers.

My Lords, I refer again to my policing interests as set out in the register. The finding of institutional corruption is uniquely serious, but two issues are being conflated. The first is the corrupt relationships that undoubtedly existed between police officers, criminal groups and the news media that frustrated a proper investigation of the murder of Daniel Morgan. When I chaired the Metropolitan Police Authority, there was a system of integrity-testing police officers on an intelligence-led basis, but also randomly. My understanding is that the latter was phased out during Boris Johnson’s mayoralty. Does the Minister agree that this was unwise?

The second issue is the culture of defensiveness. The Daniel Morgan report suggests that such a culture is just as significant now as it was when I first raised the need for a further investigation into the 1987 murder and was told by the then commissioner that there was no point as the case was 15 years old, the Met had changed and a fresh investigation would only undermine the reputation of the police. Openness and accountability are essential, so will the Government lead by example?