22 BACK PAGE LAW STORIES 30 July 2021 | www.newlawjournal.co.uk for tip-offs. It was codenamed ‘Countryman’ because the investigation was conducted by officers from Hampshire and Dorset, derided by the Met as country bumpkins and Justice for nicknamed the ‘Sweedy’ (as opposed to the Sweeney). The panel notes its investigations ‘appear not to have been well received’ by Daniel, three the Met’s commissioner, who complained that its lead officer was indulging in ‘imagined conspiracies of obstruction’ decades on (Pt 2) despite (as the panel puts it) ‘clear evidence’ that suspected officers were warned of Jon Robins sums up the findings being under investigation before they were of institutional corruption interviewed. Operation Countryman took some 2,000 uncovered by the inquiry into statements, pursued 200 separate corruption Daniel Morgan’s murder allegations and filed 41 reports to the Director of Public Prosecutions. There was only ever one trial, and that resulted in two © Shutterstock convictions. Shockingly, we now learn that the panel fter eight years, an independent ‘And for the fact that, in so doing and only received unfettered access to the inquiry set up to investigate the along the way, we have clearly, we the Met, Met’s ‘Holmes’ investigation database in 1987 murder of Daniel Morgan my force of which I’m very proud to be the September last year, despite having made Afinally delivered its report, commissioner, we have caused them extra such a request at the start of their work. ‘We weighing in at 1,251 pages and drawing anguish,’ she added. have never received an explanation which on some 110,000 documents, amassing However, Dame Cressida was not prepared we considered reasonable for the seven more than a million pages. Its findings can to adopt the panel’s incendiary judgment: years’ refusal by very senior Metropolitan be summed up in two words: ‘institutional ‘I don’t accept that we are institutionally Police officers to permit proper, independent corruption’. corrupt, no,’ she said. and unsupervised, access,’ the panel It is a damning judgment against the The panel framed its own definition of complains. They blame that ‘excessive’ Metropolitan police that comes 22 years ‘corruption’, drawing on investigations into delay for driving up their investigation’s after the same force was identified as recent scandals including mid-Staffordshire £16m costs, as well as causing ‘unnecessary ‘institutionally racist’ by Sir William NHS Foundation Trust, Stephen Lawrence, distress’ to Daniel Morgan’s family. Macpherson after his inquiry into the Hillsborough and the Grenfell Tower fire. ‘We Appearing before the Police and Crime murder of Stephen Lawrence. believe that concealing or denying failings, Committee at the London Assembly, Alastair The Daniel Morgan Independent Panel for the sake of an organisation’s public image Morgan, brother of Daniel, revealed that was set up by Theresa May when she was is dishonesty on the part of the organisation he had only received a ‘short letter’ from home secretary in 2013 in an attempt to for reputational benefit, and constitutes a Cressida Dick to apologise, which did not shine light in one of the murkiest moments form of institutional corruption,’ explained include any acknowledgement of ‘her own in recent legal history. I called Priti Patel’s the panel’s chair Baroness Nuala O’Loan. involvement in delaying and obstructing’. As interference with the publication of the She said the Met’s primary objective had well as delays to the panel report, Morgan report (she had insisted on prior approval) been to ‘protect itself’. ‘From the moment holds Dick responsible for a ‘shoddy “cut ‘another ignominious chapter’ in an epic of his murder, there were serious failures and paste”’ report into the case delivered tale of cover-up. of investigation—both at the scene which some 15 months after the collapse of the Police corruption was ‘a betrayal of was never searched, and during the first trial in 2011. everything that policing stands for in this investigation,’ she said. Opportunities to Alastair Morgan listed what the country’, the home secretary told MPs in gather evidence were ‘irretrievably lost’ family had been forced to endure: five a statement welcoming the report. She and forensic work was described by a investigations, an inquest, a two-year High reported that she was ‘pleased’ that ‘no senior officer in the second investigation as Court disclosure battle, ‘the longest pre-trial redactions were required’. ‘pathetic’. hearing in British criminal history lasting Patel acknowledged the enormous power The panel’s report offers useful context for nearly two years before the collapse of the wielded by the police in the exercise of their those that might dismiss the Daniel Morgan last prosecution and then on top of that, duty. ‘The overwhelming majority of officers saga as a one-off. In a chapter snappily titled we’ve had this eight-year inquiry’. use it honourably, but those who use their ‘Corruption: Venality to lack of candour’, ‘The only way I can describe all of this is to power for immoral ends do terrible harm, it recounts the efforts of Sir Robert Mark, say that the Met has colonised my life for the as do those who indulge, cover up or ignore Met commissioner from 1972 to 1977, who last three-and-a-half decades,’ he said. NLJ police corruption,’ she continued. ‘This is called the capital’s criminal investigation one of the most devastating episodes in the department ‘the most routinely corrupt Dr Jon Robins is an NLJ columnist, editor of history of the Metropolitan police.’ organisation in London’. The Justice Gap, and a lecturer at Sheffield The Met’s commissioner Cressida Dick The panel then detailed the ill-starred Hallam University in the law and criminology ‘apologised again for our failings and the Operation Countryman which began life in department. Jon’s new book Justice in a time fact that we have not brought anybody 1978 with allegations of corruption made of Austerity (Bristol University Press) was to justice despite six investigations and by an informant who claimed that officers published last month. Part 1 was published in countless other reviews and pieces of work’. were taking bribes from criminals in return NLJ, 11 June 2021, p22..