The Sun 12 th March 2011

Daniel Morgan ... bludgeoned to death

Cops’ £50m axe killing probe fails

By MIKE SULLIVAN, Crime Editor Published: 12 Mar 2011 SCOTLAND Yard was reeling last night after the £50million prosecution collapsed in one of Britain's most notorious unsolved murders. Three men walked free over the axe killing of 37-year-old Daniel Morgan 24 years ago amid claims police concealed damaging evidence about supergrass witnesses. Private detective Daniel's family yesterday called for a judicial inquiry into the handling of the case.

Weapon ... the axe The dad of two was bludgeoned to death in the car park of a pub in Sydenham, South London, in March 1987. His business partner is said to have paid his ex-wife's brothers, Glenn and Garry Vian, £25,000 to kill him. Det Sgt Sid Fillery, an officer on the original probe, retired a year after the killing and took Daniel's job. Cops suspected he colluded with the killers. They sank vast resources into the investigation, spending £245,000 in 2002 on a HOUSE next to a suspect to bug him. Three supergrasses - one convicted over a drug smuggling plot and a second with a personality disorder - were also rehoused at the taxpayers' expense. In April 2008, Rees, Fillery, the Vian brothers, and alleged getaway driver Jimmy Cook, 56, were charged over the murder.

Victim ... Daniel Morgan lies dead in car park More than 750,000 pages of documents were handed to the defence after FIVE police probes in 21 years. But the supergrass evidence was gradually eliminated in 18 months of legal argument costing millions. They were found to have lied or covered up their own criminality, which police were accused of failing to disclose to the defence.

Cleared ... from left, William Rees, Glenn Vian and Garry Vian Last year a murder charge against Mr Cook, 56, of Kingsworth, Surrey, was dropped. Earlier, a charge of perverting justice was thrown out against Mr Fillery, 64, of Thurne, Norfolk. The CPS yesterday threw in the towel against Mr Rees, 56, of Weybridge, Surrey, Glenn Vian, 52, of South Croydon, Surrey, and Garry Vian, 50, who is serving 11 years over drugs.

Ex-cop ... Sid Fillery It came after the Old Bailey heard yet more evidence had not been disclosed. Met homicide boss Det Chief Supt Hamish Campbell said: "Police corruption was a debilitating factor to those earlier inquiries. This was wholly unacceptable." He said: "We recognise the severe disappointment this will cause to Daniel's family and friends." Daniel's brother Alistair, 62, said: "For almost a quarter of a century, my family has done everything possible to secure justice. "For much of this time we have encountered stubborn obstruction, and worse, at the highest levels of the ."

The Guardian 13 th March 2011 Scotland Yard in spotlight as axe murder case collapses

• Fifth Met investigation into 1987 murder of Daniel Morgan fails • Suspicions that police corruption damaged earlier inquiries

Daniel Morgan, a private investigator, was found in 1987 with an axe embedded in his head. Photograph: New Scotland Yard/PA

A major Scotland Yard investigation has ended in failure after three men were acquitted of charges over the 1987 murder of a private investigator who was found with an axe embedded in his head in a pub car park.

The family of Daniel Morgan immediately called for a judicial inquiry, saying: "The criminal justice system is not fit for purpose."

They are bewildered by the fact that the case never reached a jury and that it collapsed after 18 months of legal argument during which the police were in effect on trial, accused by defence lawyers of failing to disclose potentially relevant material.

No one has been brought to justice despite five police inquiries and three years of legal hearings, unofficially estimated to have cost around £30m.

The first investigation into Morgan's murder, immediately after his killing, is feared to have seen the real killers shielded from justice by police corruption.

The Met has privately admitted that corruption in the late 1980s aided the killers in avoiding justice.

Senior officers vowed to right the wrongs of the past, but it is unlikely that Morgan's family will see the police, courts or judges deliver justice.

At the Old Bailey on Friday – a day after the 24th anniversary of his killing – the Crown Prosecution Service formally dropped the case against Morgan's former business partner Jonathan Rees and brothers Garry and Glenn Vian, who had all been charged with murder. A fourth man, Jimmy Cook, was cleared of murder at an earlier hearing. Sid Fillery, a former police detective from Catford, was cleared of attempting to pervert the course of justice at an earlier hearing. Fillery had moonlighted at Southern Investigations, the private detective firm in which Morgan was a partner.

The CPS is believed to have concluded that it could not provide sufficient guarantees to the court that every document held by police over the course of 24 years of investigations which the defence might want to study had been handed over. The manner in which the case collapsed is an embarrassment for Scotland Yard.

Morgan was killed outside the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, south London, on 10 March 1987.

Police involved in five investigations believed that the motivation for his murder lay in his business dealings.

Morgan's name became a byword to symbolise how corrupt parts of the Metropolitan police had become in the late 1980s. After a campaign led by his family, Scotland Yard tried to bring the killers to justice.

In April 2008, police arrested and charged Rees, Garry and Glenn Vian, and Jimmy Cook with murder, while Fillery was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice. The five were charged after a criminal investigation which, at the start, was kept secret by Scotland Yard.

The suspects were subjected to covert audio recording devices, or bugs, but the mainstay of the case was a series of supergrasses.

The supergrasses claimed to have knowledge of the accused's guilt, from seeing money handed over to pay for the killing, to hearing admissions from defendants. But their reliability as witnesses was questioned because they were themselves involved in crime .

The trial began in January 2009 with legal argument. Legal observers cannot recall legal argument raging for so long.

Detectives on the Morgan murder team admitted during the legal argument that they were drowned by the weight of documents they were dealing with – 750,000 of them, mostly uncomputerised, going back to 1987.

In the end, the court was told that police had found documents that had not been disclosed to the defence, undermining the credibility of the prosecution.

The death knell came on Friday last week when police again admitted that they had found four more crates of material defence lawyers had not been told about. Detectives involved in the case say they made a genuine mistake which, once realised, they informed the court about.

After intense discussions all week with senior officers, the CPS decided it would have to end the case.

Those close to the investigation, and the family, are angered by the lengthy legal argument. Defence lawyers had argued the prosecution was an abuse of process meaning the accused could not receive a fair trial.An inquest in 1988 found Morgan was unlawfully killed. An employee of Morgan's firm, Southern Investigations, said in evidence to a hearing 23 years ago that a business contact had talked of wanting Morgan killed and that his police contacts at Catford police station would help him.

The Guardian understands police believe that witness was prepared to testify again if the case had reached a jury.

Morgan's mother, Isobel Hulsmann, 83, who had travelled from her home in Hay-on-Wye, Powys, to lay flowers at her son's grave in London, was being comforted by her family. Morgan's brother, Alastair, 62, said: "My family is devastated by this news. We put some flowers on the grave. It's just horrible."

Alastair Morgan said he believed there had been a number of police cover-ups over the years and alleged that his brother was murdered because he was about to expose police corruption.

"It was obvious my brother was going to blow the lid off the links between the police and criminals," he said.