Daniel Morgan: Cressida Dick denies institutional corruptionon June 16, 2021 at 5:33 pm

The Metropolitan Police commissioner has rejected accusations the force is institutionally corrupt following a report into the unsolved murder of Daniel Morgan.

Dame Cressida Dick also said she did not obstruct the work of an inquiry into the Morgan case.

She has faced calls to resign after the publication of the report.

Private investigator Mr Morgan was attacked with an axe in the car park of a pub in south-east London in 1987.

Dame Cressida has hit back at the findings from an independent panel as she defended Scotland Yard’s work and her job.

Led by Baroness Nuala O’Loan, the panel found that the Met had put protecting its own reputation above finding Mr Morgan’s killer.

The panel’s report said: “Concealing or denying failings, for the sake of the organisation’s public image, is dishonesty on the part of the organisation for reputational benefit and constitutes a form of institutional corruption.”

The Met admitted in 2011 that the grossly inadequate first investigation into Mr Morgan’s murder – which saw the murder scene left unsearched and unguarded – had been hampered by corruption.

But the panel found that corruption had gone on after the initial inquiry, and questioned why no action had been taken to bring those who sabotaged the first investigation to justice.

In response, Dame Cressida said: “I don’t believe we are institutionally corrupt. No, I don’t accept that.

“I have the deepest feelings for Daniel Morgan’s family. They have shown extraordinary grit and determination and courage.

“Yesterday I apologised again to them for our failings and the fact that we have not brought anybody to justice despite six investigations and countless other reviews and pieces of work.

“And for the fact that, in so doing and along the way, we have clearly, we the Met, my force of which I’m very proud to be the commissioner, we have caused them extra anguish.

“But I don’t accept that we are institutionally corrupt, no.”