Dame Cressida Dick may have “breached standards” during an investigation 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 tribunal found the former commissioner had caused “significant delays” in a court investigating the 1987 murder.
In a separate report issued on Wednesday, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said: “We assessed that Dame Cressida may have breached the police’s standards of professional behavior by failing to provide full and exceptional disclosure to the Independent Panel of Daniel Morgan (DMIP) before. , although not to the extent of justifying a sanctioning file.
“We found that he acted in a genuine belief to protect the information, but may have misjudged his balance and should have given higher priority to his duty to provide full and exceptional disclosure to the panel.”
Dame Cressida disputed the IOPC’s findings that she may have breached standards, saying she and her team “acted professionally, flexibly, swiftly, diligently and with integrity in a difficult, unprecedented and complex task”.
“As of December 2014, the panel had received 133,000 pages of material,” he added.
“I deeply regret that no one has been brought to justice for Daniel’s murder and I regret everything that the Met or any of its members have done that has added to the pain of Daniel’s family at losing Daniel in such circumstances terrible”.
Father-of-two Morgan was brutally murdered with an ax in a south London pub car park in March 1987.
There have been no successful prosecutions despite four major police investigations, an inquest, disciplinary action, whistleblowing and other operations.
The IOPC concluded that there were no new avenues of investigation that could now lead to 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 have had to say so repeatedly over the decades since murder,” a statement added.
“We, and the wider public, have been failed over the decades by a culture of corruption and cover-up in the Metropolitan Police.”
The findings, published eight years after the independent panel was commissioned by Theresa May, said corruption and the “irretrievable” loss of evidence prevented those responsible from being brought to justice.
The panel’s final report, published in June last year, said Dame Cressida’s refusal to allow “appropriate access” to Holmes’ IT investigative system hampered the investigation.
Baroness Nuala O’Loan, chair of the DMIP, said at the time: “It caused significant delays in the panel’s work, which inevitably added to the panel’s costs, caused further unnecessary distress to Mr Morgan’s family.” .
Daniel Morgan, a private investigator who was hacked to death with an ax in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, south-east London, on March 10, 1987 (Family Document/PA)
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He said Scotland Yard’s leadership had failed to acknowledge or confront its failings and showed a “lack of candor”, adding: “We believe the Metropolitan Police’s first aim was to protect itself.”
Boris Johnson said he had “full confidence” in Dame Cressida after the report was published, prompting fresh calls for her to resign.
She announced she was stepping down as commissioner of the Metropolitan Police 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 assistant commissioner, was the “senior Metropolitan Police officer with responsibility for supporting the work of the Daniel Morgan panel” when it was set up in 2013.
He 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 IT system.
Baroness O’Loan said the panel had “never received any reasonable explanation for the seven-year refusal by Cressida Dick and her successors to allow proper access to Holmes’ accounts”.
He said the eventual cost of the £16m investigation would have been lower but for time delays and “the very significant resources that have had to be spent challenging the Metropolitan Police’s continued claims of difficulties to allow the requested access to the Holmes system. This should not have happened.”
The force, which has since been placed in special measures, accepted that corruption was a “significant factor” in the failure of the original 1987 inquiry into Morgan’s murder, but rejected the label more widespread institutional corruption.
Michael Kellett, Professor Rodney Morgan, Baroness Nuala O’Loan, Dr Silvia Casale and Samuel Pollock, following the publication of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel last summer (PA)
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The IOPC said its powers were limited to the actions of individual officers and that it “has no power to make any determination” on the matter.
It looked at 50 current and serving officers, and also asked the Metropolitan Police, the Mayor of London’s Office for Policing and Crime (Mopac) and Hampshire Constabulary to assess whether officers had committed misconduct or any crime
All three bodies responded negatively, but the IOPC said it disagreed with their assessments of Dame Cressida and other officers.
He also named former Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner John Yates, who retired in 2011, saying he may have breached standards by failing to take action against the senior investigating officer in Mr Morgan’s murder.
The actions of former Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Cook led to key witness evidence being excluded from the trial of three suspects, the IOPC said, but disciplinary proceedings cannot be brought after retirement.
Sal Naseem, regional director of the IOPC in London, said: “From the first to the last inquest into Daniel Morgan’s murder, there were failures to challenge and properly investigate allegations that officers had acted corrupt
“In reaching our decisions, we are fully aware that not a single officer was ever successfully prosecuted or received significant disciplinary action as a result of corruption directly related to the murder investigations.
“The circumstances of these matters should serve as a starker reminder to the Metropolitan Police, and the police service more broadly, of the importance of being constantly vigilant to challenge inappropriate and corrupt behavior swiftly, firmly and robustly “.
Assistant Commissioner Amanda Pearson said Scotland Yard had “transformed” its response to murder and corruption since Morgan’s killing and was working to implement the panel’s recommendations.
“We deeply regret that we have not been able to bring to justice those responsible for the murder of Daniel Morgan. We deeply apologize,” he added.
“Corrupt people, including police officers, played a significant role in undermining our ability to bring criminals to justice and we recognize the impact this has had on the public’s trust in us.”