EX-OFFICER CALLS FOR ACTION OVER WELSH DETECTIVE MURDER PROBE
AN ex-police officer calling himself “Frank Matthews” is urging the Met to admit all its “wrongdoings” in the Daniel Morgan murder probe.
Private detective Mr Morgan was murdered on March 10, 1987, when he was found with an axe in his head in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, London.
Five inquiries into the 30-yearold case failed to solve a crime that – it’s now admitted – was mired in police corruption.
One supporter of the Morgan family is an ex-Met witness protection officer, from Wales, who knows Mr Morgan’s mother, Isobel Hulsman. He used the pseudonym Frank Matthews on Twitter.
He told BBC Radio Wales’ current affairs show, Eye on Wales, the “Met have not been open and honest with this case” and that new Met commissioner Cressida Dick had the chance to make a “brave move” over what has happened since.
“They hide behind the fact that they need to protect some of their information,” he said.
“I disagree with that. This is a murder investigation, a clear case that could have been unravelled at the early stages.
“Until the Met comes clean we are left with no option than to believe that this is corruption.”
The family of Mr Morgan, from Llanfrechfa, near Cwmbran, Torfaen, believe he was about to expose serious police corruption when he was killed.
The case is now the subject of an independent Home Office inquiry.
Four men were charged with Mr Morgan’s murder in 2008. But after 18 months of legal argument the case collapsed in March 2011.
As Home Secretary in 2013, The- resa May, set up an independent, judge-led panel of experts to examine claims police corruption prevented a conviction.
The Morgan family have been calling for a Leveson Two inquiry investigating links between journalists, police and private investigators to happen.
A spokesman for the independent inquiry said: “The panel has started writing its report. However, as further new material requiring examination continued to be submitted throughout 2016, no publication date has yet been set.
“The aim is to get the report published before the Parliamentary summer recess.”
Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt said: “The re-investigation into Daniel Morgan’s murder identified, ever more clearly, how the initial inquiry failed the family and wider public.
“The Metropolitan Police Service has stated that it is quite apparent that police corruption was a debilitating factor in that investigation, which is wholly unacceptable. The work of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel is ongoing, and the MPS continues to work with them, as they seek to fully examine the circumstances of Daniel’s murder, and the handling of the case since 1987.”