Met Police chief Cressida Dick ‘may have breached professional standards’ over Daniel Morgan inquiry

Dame Cressida Dick may have “breached standards” during an inquiry into the unsolved murder of private detective Daniel Morgan, the police watchdog has said.

In a report accusing the Metropolitan Police of “institutional corruption”, an independent panel found the former commissioner had caused “major delays” to a panel investigating the 1987 killing.

In a separate report issued on Wednesday, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said: “We assessed that Dame Cressida may have breached police standards of professional behaviour by not providing full and exceptional disclosure to the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel (DMIP) sooner, although not to the extent that would justify disciplinary proceedings.

“We found that she acted with a genuine belief to protect the information but may have got the balance wrong and should have given greater priority to her duty to provide full and exceptional disclosure to the panel.”

Mr Morgan, a father-of-two, was brutally murdered with an axe in the car park of a south London pub in March 1987.

There have been no successful prosecutions despite four major police investigations, an inquest, disciplinary action, complaints and other operations.

The IOPC concluded that there were no new avenues for investigation which could now result in either criminal or disciplinary proceedings.

Mr Morgan’s family said they were “ disappointed but not surprised” by the outcome of the review.

“As Daniel’s family, we became aware of the police corruption and criminality at the heart of this matter within weeks of the murder: we said so then, and we had to say so repeatedly over the decades since the murder,” a statement added.

“We – and the public at large – have been failed over the decades by a culture of corruption and cover up in the Metropolitan Police.”

Findings published eight years after the independent panel was commissioned by Theresa May said corruption and the “irretrievable” loss of evidence prevented the culprits from being brought to justice.

The panel’s final report, published in June last year, said Dame Cressida’s refusal to allow “proper access” to the Holmes computer investigation system hampered the inquiry.

Baroness Nuala O’Loan, chair of the DMIP, said at the time: “It caused major delays to the panel’s work, which inevitably added to the panel’s costs, caused further unnecessary distress to the family of Mr Morgan.”

She said Scotland Yard’s leadership had not acknowledged or confronted its failings and showed a “lack of candour”, adding: “We believe the Metropolitan Police’s first objective was to protect itself.”

Boris Johnson said he had “full confidence” in Dame Cressida following the release of the report, which sparked fresh calls for her resignation.

She announced she was stepping down as Metropolitan Police commissioner in February, following the murder of Sarah Everard and a series of scandals over racism and misogyny by officers.

The panel said Dame Cressida, then an assistant commissioner, was the “senior officer in the Metropolitan Police with responsibility for supporting the Daniel Morgan panel’s work” when it was set up in 2013.

She drew up the terms of reference for the review alongside Crown Prosecution Service officials and was involved in an initial row over “sensitive” material and access to the Holmes computer system.

Baroness O’Loan said the panel had “never received any reasonable explanation for the refusal over seven years by Cressida Dick and her successors to permit proper access to the Holmes accounts”.

Xural.com