Daniel Morgan murder: damning report condemns Met police | Metropolitan police

The Metropolitan police’s ability to tackle corruption is “fundamentally flawed”, the policing inspectorate has found in a damning report into the Daniel Morgan murder.

The report from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services was ordered after an independent panel criticised the Met for failings over the Morgan murder, where corruption hampered the hunt for the killers of the private eye.

Morgan was found dead in 1987 in a pub car park in south London with an axe in his head. No one has been convicted of the murder.

The force was accused of “indifference”, despite decades of promises. Thirty-five years on from the murder, the Met had still not learned all the lessons, the inspectorate found.

The inspectors found the Met:

Failed to properly supervise more than 100 recruits with criminal convictions or criminal connections, to lessen the risk they may pose. Those convictions include handling stolen goods, possession of drugs, assault and theft.

The Met does not know if those in highly sensitive posts, such as child protection, major crime investigation, and informant handling, are vetted to the right level.

More than 2,000 warrant cards issued to former officers who are now not entitled to hold them are unaccounted for.

Monitoring of IT systems, which helps identify potentially corrupt staff, remains weaker than it should be.

Hundreds of items such as drugs, cash and exhibits are missing, with the arrangements and policies for keeping them safe branded as “dire”. In once case the security code for a store was written on its door at one police station.

Matt Parr, HM inspector of constabulary, said: ”Corruption is almost certainly higher than the Met understands.”

Parr added: “It is unacceptable that 35 years after Daniel Morgan’s murder, the Metropolitan police has not done enough to ensure its failings from that investigation cannot be repeated. In fact, we found no evidence that someone, somewhere, had adopted the view that this must never happen again.

“We found substantial weaknesses in the Met’s approach to tackling police corruption. The Met’s apparent tolerance of these shortcomings suggests a degree of indifference to the risk of corruption.

“We have made several recommendations for change. If public confidence in the Metropolitan police is to be improved, they should be among the commissioner’s highest priorities.”

The findings from the inspectorate were so serious that several weeks ago the headlines findings were briefed to the home secretary, Met commissioner and London mayor.

The panel that looked into Morgan’s murder, set up by the government, reported last year and found the Met to be institutionally corrupt. In part that was because the force was slow to hand over documents requested.

HMICFRS concluded the Met was not institutionally corrupt and any hampering of the inquiry was not deliberate. But it was critical.
The inspectorate said: “We concluded that, at least until recently, the MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] has often shown a reluctance to examine, admit and learn from past mistakes and failures.”

“We concluded that the adverse matters …..bore the hallmarks of limited resources allocated to the maintenance of professional standards, professional incompetence, a lack of understanding of important concepts, poor management or genuine error, rather than dishonesty.

“We found no evidence of any deliberate or coordinated campaign to intentionally frustrate the panel’s work. It follows that we would not describe the MPS as institutionally corrupt based upon the evidence we have seen.”

The inspectorate said the Met had had enough warnings: “There are multiple serious areas of concern, including in relation to the ways in which the MPS responds to allegations of corruption, which must be addressed to secure public confidence in the MPS.

“It is essential that the MPS should be more open to criticism and prepared to change where necessary, including by implementing our recommendations. A further failure to do so (without good reason) may well justify the label of institutional corruption in due course.”

Reports into potential failings that allowed Wayne Couzens to join the Met are expected later this year. While a serving Met officer, he used police powers to kidnap and murder Sarah Everard in March 2021.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/22/daniel-morgan-damning-report-condemns-met-police

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