22 BACK PAGE LAW STORIES 11 June 2021 | www.newlawjournal.co.uk

After Morgan’s death, his business partner, Jonathan Rees, was busy helping Justice for the now defunct supplying illegally gained confi dential information via a network of corrupt police o! cers. Rees Daniel, three was initially a suspect for Daniel Morgan’s murder as was detective sergeant Sid Fillery, who initially questioned Rees about decades on his involvement and subsequently joined Southern Investigations. The Channel 4 Jon Robins investigates claims of a documentary featured interviews with both ‘cover up’ in the horrifi c murder of Rees and Fillery. The Guardian journalist , in private investigator, Daniel Morgan his 2014 book Hack Attack: How the truth caught up with (Random House), reckoned that News of the World ix years ago, I interviewed the paid the agency more than £166,000 in a brother of Daniel Morgan, the single year (1996). In 2012, the Leveson Sprivate eye found murdered in the inquiry heard how the tabloid placed a car park of the Golden Lion pub senior police detective and his wife under in Sydenham, south-east London with an surveillance in an attempt to undermine axe embedded in his head in 1987. Alastair the investigation. It was suggested that Morgan has now spent over three decades reporters were in pursuit a ‘kiss-and-tell’ attempting to expose those responsible for story about an a" air between former this most notorious murder, and yet nobody detective chief superintendent David Cook has stood trial. ‘Sometimes I’d step back and and Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames. think: “God Almighty, how did I do it. How The story was a non-starter as the couple © Shutterstock did I continue?”’ he told me then. ‘The more were already married. I discovered, the worse it got and I’d think to asked the Home O! ce to guarantee the In 2018 Matt Hancock, then culture myself: “I can’t stop. This looks even worse report will be published this month (by secretary, pulled the plug on an than I thought.”’ 16 June). investigation into the murder under part Last month, another ignominious chapter Alastair Morgan has called this latest two of Leveson, which was to investigate has seemingly opened up in what Morgan’s plot twist ‘shameful, but typical’. For the links between Southern Investigations and family and their supporters regard as fi rst time, Daniel Morgan’s son—also News of the World . an epic ‘cover up’ that has managed to Daniel—has commented on the family’s withstand fi ve police investigations intact ‘living nightmare’ dealing with 34 years No justice and without a single conviction. Priti of ‘unspent grief’. In an article for The Speaking in the House of Commons last Patel now stands accused by the family Guardian , he wrote the following: ‘What month, the Labour MP Chris Bryant called of interfering with the independence of a remains most sickening is the failure of upon Priti Patel to publish the report panel set up by a predecessor, Theresa May, the institutions of the state to do what ‘without deletion, amendment or redaction’ in 2013 and charged with investigating was required of them: the failure to to avoid accusation of a further ‘cover-up’. what the former prime minister called ‘one address the police corruption that has He added that ‘thanks to corruption in the of the country’s most notorious unsolved protected those responsible for the murder police and interference by News UK the murders’. ‘The horrifi c murder of Daniel from justice; and the repeated failure to family have had no justice’. Morgan and subsequent investigations confront that corruption over the decades; Responding to Bryant, the Home O! ce were dogged by serious allegations of police a failure of the police hierarchy at the minister Victoria Atkins insisted Priti Patel corruption,’ May said at the time. ‘Several highest ranks; the failure of the Home wanted the report published as soon as criminal investigations failed to bring those O! ce which is supposed to be responsible possible, but that she was obliged to fi rst responsible to justice and this independent for the police.’ check it for any national security concerns. panel will leave no stone unturned to The story of Daniel Morgan has In a recent report, The Guardian noted fi nd out why.’ been told many times—most recently that the home secretary was a guest at The panel’s work, which runs to more by Channel 4 in their three-part Rupert Murdoch’s wedding to Jerry Hall in than 1,000 pages, was reported to have documentary ‘Murder in the Car Park’. 2016. Chris Bryant asked for correspondence already been at the printers when the Daniel Morgan was a partner in a between the home secretary and Murdoch’s home secretary stepped in. The irony of the private detective agency called Southern media business. ‘It’s not di! cult to see why home secretary now invoking the Human Investigations. The family has long powerful people with very close friends in Rights Act to prevent the publication of a claimed that the murder was an execution News International might want to delay or supposedly ‘independent’ report seemingly with the aim of silencing Daniel who was even prevent this publication,’ he said. NLJ to spare the blushes of police o! cers about to blow the whistle on high-level accused of corruption is all too obvious. corruption in the Met. The Dr Jon Robins is an NLJ columnist, editor of scandal recast his murder in a di" erent The Justice Gap, and a lecturer at Sheffi eld Stand-off light and, according to Alastair Morgan, Hallam University in the law and criminology Following a stand-o" between Patel and the explained the lack of enthusiasm over the department. Jon’s new book’s Justice in a time panel which had refused to hand its work years on the part of sections of our media of Austerity (Bristol University Press) is out over, its chair Baroness O’Loan has now for a shocking story of police corruption. later this month.