Men cleared in axe killing trial win huge police payout
POLICE were ordered yesterday to pay compensation to three men suspected of one of the country’s most notorious unsolved murders.
And Scotland Yard was told one of its most senior detectives had been corrupt and maliciously pursued the trio over the death of Daniel Morgan.
In a damning judgment, the Court of Appeal said claiming the officer did not try to fabricate a case is ‘rather like saying that Robin Hood was not guilty of theft’.
Jonathan Rees and his brothersin-law Glenn and Garry Vian are now likely to share more than £1million in damages.
They spent years in jail on remand accused of the 1987 axe murder of the private investigator before the case collapsed at the Old Bailey seven years ago. It emerged that key witness, career criminal Gary Eaton, had been illicitly coached by Detective Chief Superintendent David Cook.
The decision is a huge setback for the force which has spent 31 years fighting for justice for the Morgan family. It adds to an extraordinary bill of around £100million run up during the course of five police inquiries, trial preparation and years of High Court legal wrangling.
And the cost to taxpayers will increase further after Scotland Yard said it will seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.
The ruling also threatens to further delay an official inquiry into the murder, the failed police probes and swirling claims of police corruption. First announced in May 2013 and expected to take a year, it is not expected to report back until at least 2019. Mr Morgan, 37, was murdered in the car park of the Golden Lion pub, in Sydenham, south London.
He was hit four or five times in the head with an axe which was left embedded in his face. There were no witnesses and the case against the men hinged on the evidence of Eaton, who claimed to have arrived shortly afterwards. But the criminal trial collapsed after it emerged he had been ‘coached’ by Mr Cook.
Last year a judge ruled the once feted officer, who is now retired, had ‘intended to pervert the course of justice’. Yesterday, the Court of Appeal finally ordered the Met to compensate Rees and the Vians.
Lord Justice McCombe said: ‘It is entirely clear that the case presented by DCS Cook was not a proper one.’ The judge added that the officer knowingly put a case before prosecutors which he knew was ‘significantly tainted by his own wrongdoing’.
Agreeing that the trio are entitled to payouts, Lady Justice King said: ‘To say that DCS Cook … was, on account of his belief in their guilt, not acting maliciously, is rather like saying that Robin Hood was not guilty of theft.’
The three men are each believed to be claiming six figure sums.