Justice 4 Daniel - Statement by the Morgan family 3rd August 2022

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In light of the report released by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) today, the family have made the following statement:

“We, the family of Daniel Morgan, are disappointed but not surprised by the outcome of the IOPC review of this matter. We have to ask: why did it take some 14 months for the IOPC to produce what is no more than a rather poor shadow of the findings published by the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel (DMIP) in June 2021?

“What we find here is a rather shabby exercise by the IOPC to avoid the implications of the police corruption and criminality which the Panel’s report compelled them to acknowledge.

“In the same vein, we see the IOPC forced to find that ex-Commissioner Cressida Dick “may have breached police standards of professional behaviour” in the obstructive stance she chose to adopt towards the work of the Panel, but they then go to look for reasons not to use their powers to act on that finding.

“In doing so, the IOPC shows that it suffers the very sickness within its own ranks that it purports to diagnose within the Met:

“The IOPC believes the failures [in this case] to confront corruption throughout the investigations have resulted from a reluctance to use the disciplinary regime to robustly challenge and investigate behaviour which may be corrupt.” (Para 18)

“In this case, and in others the IOPC has seen, there has been too much hesitance in reporting suspected corruption by colleagues and disciplinary decision makers have put the bar too high for recording conduct matters and bringing misconduct proceedings; the best possible interpretation has been placed on conduct and explanations accepted which should be tested before a misconduct panel. At the heart of necessary cultural change must be a robust application of the requirement that “police officers report, challenge or take action against the conduct of colleagues which has fallen below the Standards of Professional Behaviour” with a determination to bring misconduct proceedings when the tests in the regulations are met.” (Para 19)

“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.

“Through those decades, we saw how the predecessors of the IOPC –the PCA (Police Complaints Authority) until 2003 and then the IPCC (Independent Police Complaints Commission) – sought to avoid the implications of that police corruption and criminality, much as the IOPC seeks to do today.

“We found in the Panel’s report an accurate reflection of our lived experience. We welcomed its recognition that we – and the public at large – have been failed over the decades by a culture of corruption and cover up in the Metropolitan Police: an institutionalised corruption that has permeated successive regimes in the Metropolitan Police and beyond to this day.

“In the event, all those responsible for and oversight of the Met – within the force, at the Mayor’s Office (MOPAC), at the Home Office and at the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) – have chosen to duck the challenge posed to them by the Panel’s report. It seems to have proved beyond them all to find the courage, the integrity and the will to confront the culture of corruption and cover up that remains rife in the Met. In the circumstances, we consider that there is no reason to expect any better from the newly appointed leadership of the Met.”