Detective Chief superintendent David Cook (left) was allegedly under surveillance by News of the World during an investigation into the murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan (right)

Friday, May 25, 2012

#Leveson #pressreform : You have STAMINA Daddy ! Creepy Texts Between Hunt And Murdoch.

  • Creepy texts between Hunt and Murdoch lobbyist
  • The pair repeatedly call each other “Daddy”
  • Hunt compares himself to Clint Eastwood


The text messages between Jeremy Hunt and Murdoch’s lobbyist are just plain embarrassing.
FM: great announcement today. Well done
JH: Merci papa [...]
FM: Full of energy and purpose on Andrew Marr! Liked your answer on Rupert and the BBC! Have a great visit to India. Fred
JH: Merci mon ami
In what is perhaps a reference to mutual fatherhood of new babies — their children were born in the same hospital on the same day — the pair resorted to calling each other “daddy”. At times this drifts off into what could be kindly be referred to as flirting.
FM: You were great on the BBC this week-end!
JH: U too daddy [...]
FM: Great speech. Watched it with cycling team. And I can’t believe you managed to do Newsnight as well! You have stamina daddy!
JH: We all find it somewhere!
When Clint Eastwood complained about Hunt abolishing the UK Film Council:
FM: Be strong! Even Clint Eastwood can’t stop it
JH: If they play Dirty Harry so can I!
And there’s more. We’re updating this page with the best ones.


http://politicalscrapbook.net/2012/05/jeremy-hunt-fred-michel-texts/
Posted by at

#Leveson #pressreform : Scotland Yard And Lord Stevens Grim Joke. The MET Are Murdoch's Boys!

Scotland Yard Operation Elveden is a grim in-joke to indicate they would make sure the accusations never went anywhere!
Operation Weeting is the investigation into the News of the World phone hacking itself. Weeting is the village at the southern end of the notorious Elveden traffic jam.” There was never going to be any form of justice for Daniel Morgan ever !


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/mar/06/leveson-inquiry-condon-stevens-live


2.25pm: Stevens has now finished his testimony.

2.21pm: Jay asks id Stevens is being "diffident" about his reasons for leaving the News of the World because he was picking up rumours about phone hacking. Stevens says no, this wasn't the reason for ending his column at the News of the World.
[It was the] convictions of Goodman and Mulcaire, my thoughts about that and the thoughts about the admission of that and the resignation of Andy Coulson....
The whole thing just didn't seem right to me and I had to get out.
2.19pm: Stevens is asked about the investigation into the murder of Daniel Morgan and if he was aware the News of the World put detective Dave Cook and his wife Jacqui Hames, under surveillance.

Stevens says: "No."

2.18pm: Stevens says he became aware that a number of newspapers were receiving information from an unidentified police officer.

This individual and those surrounding him were selling stories to whoever would buy them. Some of it was "salacious gossip".

2.17pm: They are now talking about private investigator Southern Investigations.
Stevens says he was never aware that News of the World used it.

In his book his says that at the end of the 1990s it kept coming up in the "anti-corruption squad's radar".

The agency was set up by murdered private eye Daniel Morgan.

2.15pm: Stevens says he used to meet the MPA at least once a week. Most of them were experienced people.

Lord Harris of Haringey, the first chair of the MPA, had decided that all of these meetings should be open. Stevens said it was an examination beyond what he had experienced before.

2.05pm: The inquiry has resumed and Jay is revisits Stevens's remarks about "unethical behaviour" that led him to sever his ties with the News of the World, where he was contracted to write a column.

He says this revolved around an article concerning Max Mosley.

Jay points out that the infamous article about Mosley appeared in April 2008, but Stevens had terminated his contract in October 2007.

Stevens is pressed on what he means by "unethical behaviour". "General behaviour," he says.

Asked whether this means phone hacking or behaviour more widely, he says: "Just more widely."

1.00pm: The inquiry has now broken for lunch and will resume at 2pm.

1.00pm: Stevens says he had a system called "ethical testing" and that strategy – which wasn't far from being an "agent provocateur" – did not turn up "any real issue on my watch".

12.58pm: Stevens says he was aware of allegations of corruption in relation to the press.
"Every now and then" he heard stories that people either still employed or retired were being paid for stories or for tipping people off about where raids were taking place.

12.56pm: Asked about politicians, Stevens says the former home secretary David Blunkett briefed the press against him behind his back.

He says Blunkett didn't understand his relationship with the Metropolitan Police Authority.

12.54pm: Jay returns to the issue of leaks – this time in relation to Stevens's Northern Ireland inquiries.

He says he can usually work out who is gaining by the leak, but it is a "very difficult business" identifying the person responsible.

However, there were prosecutions for leaks in Northern Ireland.

He says at the Met his deputy, Ian Blair, would have been responsible for leak inquiries.

12.49pm: Stevens says he does not think "professional relationships could have been fostered without some sort of hospitality".

"This is the way they did business – if you didn't do it that way, they probably wouldn't see you," says Stevens.

12.48pm: Stevens revisits his dealings with Rebekah Wade and Paul Dacre, reiterating that his meetings with the former concerned Sarah's Law and the latter was very keen on the investigation into the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

12.46pm: Stevens says he has heard people in the Met "are terrified" of picking up the phone to the press in the current climate.

12.37pm: Stevens says he was paid £5,000 each for the first two News of the World articles, which was a vast amount as far as he was concerned, but he "was told this was the going rate". Wallis edited the articles.

He quit after two articles because of the conviction of NoW royal editor Clive Goodman and investigator Glenn Mulcaire for phone hacking in 2007.

Stevens resigned the contract in October 2007 which was nine months or so after the convictions.

He revealed however that when the convictions were taking place, "certain other information was coming to my ears" which alarmed him. "I didn't just want to do it," he adds.
Stevens says:
I didn't complete that contract because of the conviction that took place of the two people in the News of the World, and I saw Colin Myler and Neil Wallis and told them I didn't want to continue. I never gave them specific reasons, but from that night on I never saw them again.
The remaining five articles were negotiated at £7,000 apiece.
"With five articles to write it was throwing away a lot of money," he says.
"I'd never have written the articles had I known what I know now."

12.34pm: Jay moves on to the "revolving door" between police and the press following retirement.
Stevens was hired to write seven articles for the News of the World, arranged by his book publisher through managing editor Stuart Kuttner. This was part of the package negotiated around his autobiography Not for the Faint Hearted.
He reveals he lost all the proceeds from his autobiography after the Northern Rock bank collapsed.

12.30pm: Jay quotes the Met's 2003 gifts and hospitality policy. It says the perception of suspicion is as important as the facts.

It says light working lunches in the region of £10 are acceptable, but £150 dinners are not, except in exceptional circumstances.

Jay says private dinners raise a difficult issue.

12.29pm: Stevens says he found it difficult to get some stories into the papers. For example, Scotland Yard held awards to commend officers on their bravery every six weeks to two months, and it was "incredibly difficult" to get coverage.

12.27pm: Stevens agrees with Condon's evidence that the press should not be "pariahs".
To use Lord Condon's pharase they weren't pariahs; they were highly professional people who I respected immensely.
12.26pm: Stevens says he had to sue the press twice.
Once was when he complained to the PCC after it was reported he believed in legalising cannabis and the second time was inaccurate reporting on his level of pay.

12.22pm: Stevens says he finds it hard to criticise his successors, but says he thinks he would have been "ruthless" on phone hacking.
I would like to have thought the issues that the Guardian raised I would have picked up as commissioner. I think I would have been quite ruthless in pursuing it.
Stevens says he would have gone where the investigation took him wherever that may be.
"I know of no other way of pursuing wrongdoing," he says.

12.22pm: Stevens is asked how he would describe his relationship with Neil Wallis.
"It was totally professional," says Stevens. "I never went to his house or he to mine."

12.19pm: In 2002, there was dinner with Neil Wallis at Convivio. This was one of the two charity events Stevens referred to ealier.

In September 2003, Stevens dined with the News of the World's Wallis, Andy Coulson and Stuart Kutter, as well as Dick Fedorcio. This was part of the general pattern of meeting with editors, he says.

12.16pm: In 2002, there was dinner with Rebekah Wade and her then husband Ross Kemp at the Ivy.

Stevens says from 2000 to 2005, he met up with Wade 12 times, three times of which were for charity.

"Ross Kemp very kindly agreed to front an evening," he says. "My wife was at two of these and on one of those ocassions I personally paid at the Ivy."

12.14pm: In Oct/Nov 2000, there was a meeting with Wallis and Waheed Alii – the former Planet 24 owner and now Labour peer. Stevens wanted Alli, who was a friend of Wallis, as an adviser to the Met.

In June 2001 there was a dinner with Neil Wallis, editor of the People.

12.12pm: On 16 October 2000, Stevens had lunch with Rebekah Wade, editor of the News of the World, with Andy Coulson in a hotel in W1 – he thinks that was the Sanderson Hotel.
"I always saw Rebekah Wade with the DPA," he says. "She was pursuing Sarah's Law and at that stage she had threats to her … so the conversations were Sarah's Law and [issues] pursuant to that."

12.11pm: Stevens's diary details a dinner with Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World, at the Birdcage, a restaurant in London W1, in 2000.
Stevens says he met Wallis twice with their wives in relation to a charity.

12.10pm: Stevens's diary shows he had frequent meetings with the press across all newspapers. On occasion there were dinners with Paul Dacre, editor-in-chief of the Daily Mail.

He says he did not favour one newspaper group and the diary bears this out.

12.09pm: Lord Stevens's witness statement has now been published on the Leveson inquiry website.

12.07pm: Stevens said he had lunches with the editors of all papers but Dick Fedorcio, the director of public affairs, would always attend.

He had more frequent – quarterly – meetings with Evening Standard editors Sir Max Hastings and Veronica Wadley because he considered it the "local newspaper for London".

12.06pm: Lord Condon's witness statement has now been published on the Leveson inquiry website.

12.05pm: Stevens says he was keen to take media on police operations because it showed how the Met was tackling crime.

However, like Condon, he says it shouldn't interfere with an individual's right to a fair trial.

12.04pm: Stevens says the people who are on the frontline tell the story "far better" than senior officers. But there are always inherent risks in allowing officers to speak to journalists.
"The risk is you are exposing people who haven't had full training in dealing with the press," he adds.

11.57am: Stevens explains what he means by "off the record", and says it depended on the context. He says if a police officer is offering comment it is "very dangerous territory".
He says it is in the public interest for the police to give off-the-record briefings to editors, for example, on anti-terrorism.

Stevens adds he is cynical about the phrase "police sources" as it could cover an officer who is not involved in the story or someone who may not even be in the police force.

11.52am: Stevens drew up a policy to reinforce confidence in the force and part of this involved a strategy in relation to the media covering three areas: proactive; reactive; and media training.

He says he was one of first officers to get media training, and was told on an an FBI course: "Never to tell lies to the press."

Stevens says the policy required officers to be "open and honest".

11.49am: The Met's relationship with the media was built on mistrust before he arrived as deputy commissioner in 1998, says Condon.

He adds that the reason people didn't want to deal with the media was because they thought it would be counterproductive and they would be criticised.

11.47am: Stevens is currently the chair of Labour's "independent review" into the future of policing, which has all-party support.

He says he hopes it will take into account the Leveson inquiry's findings and report next year.

11.46am: Stevens says he wanted to engineer a culture change, which he says were successful.
Complaints against the police had dropped 50%; crime was coming down; and the Met had managed to divert IRA terrorist attacks.

11.45am: Stevens says his new policy was not to banish bad news stories – the nature of policing means there are always bad news stories – but he wanted to allow "officers on the street to tell their stories far more in a positive fashion".
"I know good news doesn't sell newspapers or the media, but we were going to try and do some of that," he tells the inquiry.

11.44am: Stevens says the Met was dealing with crisis management, but dealing with the media was only one part of the strategy.
"The media were a major part of it, but it was a matter of getting on the front foot … and getting the anti-corruption practices that we developed at that time.
11.42am: Stevens says the Met lost hundreds of officers in the wake of the Macpherson report and by 2000 it found recruitment difficult.
"No one thought the Met was an organisation worth joining," he adds.

11.40am: As deputy commissioner at the Met from 1998, Stevens oversaw a major anti-corruption initiative.

The Macpherson report into the death of Stephen Lawrence was published in 1999 and found the police force was institutionally racist.
Jay asks how that affected his relationship with the media.
Stevens says it had a "massive effect" because ordinary officers felt they were all being painted as racist.

11.39am: Stevens joined the police in 1962 and remained there for 23 years. He took a break and returned to the force in Hampshire and Cambridge.
He had a standout stint in northern Ireland where he led what turned out to be a 20-year investigation into alleged collusion between loyalists and the police force.

11.35am: The inquiry has resumed and Condon's successor as Met commissioner, Lord Stevens, takes the stand.

Robery Jay QC, counsel to the inquiry, is doing the questioning.





Posted by at

Thursday, May 24, 2012

James Hunt Memo To Cameron

Jeremy Hunt
Jeremy Hunt's career prospects could be determined by evidence at the Leveson inquiry today. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA
 
5.15pm: Here's an afternoon summary.

• The Leveson inquiry has been told that Jeremy Hunt drafted a memo for David Cameron in late 2010 saying it would be "totally wrong" to give in to those opposing News Corporation's bid for BSkyB. The document was written about a month before Hunt took responsibility for the bid and, in it, Hunt said: "If we block [the bid] our media sector will suffer for years." Robert Jay, the inquiry counsel, read out extracts from the memo as Adam Smith, Hunt's former special adviser was giving evidence. Smith revealed that he had had no contact with those opposed to the bid, even though he had been in regular contact with News Corp about it. Hunt's aides have been playing down the significance of the memo, pointing out that in it he said - as he always had done - that plurality issues would have to be addressed for the bid to be allowed. There are more details on our Leveson live blog.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2012/may/24/adam-smith-fred-michel-leveson-live-blog#block-26
Posted by at

#Leveson #pressreform :Hunt to MPs 25/04: No unminuted/unofficial contact with Michel

Posted by at

#Leveson #pressreform :Rohan Rivett Betrayed By Murdoch

A tale of two Ruperts..when in fact it was Rohan Rivett at the Sydney Morning Herald who did all the leg work in defence of Rupert Max Stuart. Rupert Murdoch took ALL the credit....

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2002/s715217.htm

http://themurdochempireanditsnestofvipers.blogspot.com/2011/01/it-all-started-with-small-town.html

Rupert Murdoch stomped on people from the very beginning and claimed Max Stuart for his own success.
Posted by at

#Leveson #pressreform #Hackgate Day 500

Posted by at

#Leveson #pressreform : CORRUPTION - Cameron & Hunt - Jeremy Hunt urged PM to allow BSkyB deal weeks before taking charge of bid

Culture secretary told David Cameron the 'media sector would suffer for years' if News Corp's bid for BSkyB was blocked
  • Jeremy Hunt
Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, urged the prime minister to back News Corp's takeover bid for BSkyB. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA
 
The culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, wrote privately to the prime minister urging him in strong terms to back Rupert Murdoch's takeover bid for BSkyB just a month before David Cameron appointed him to take charge of the bid himself in a "quasi-judicial" capacity.


The intervention by Hunt, who is facing calls for his resignation, was revealed for the first time in a document shown to the Leveson inquiry on Thursday. Hunt urged Cameron not to allow the business secretary, Vince Cable, to block the BSkyB bid despite strong advice to the culture secretary from his own officials that he should not involve himself in the process.


The culture secretary claimed to the prime minister that if the Murdoch bid was blocked "our media sector will suffer for years". He asked for a meeting with Cable and Cameron to discuss the handling of the deal.


The document appears to corroborate the picture that emerges from earlier email exchanges between Hunt's aide Adam Smith and the News Corp lobbyist Frédéric Michel. Those emails document an apparently collusive relationship with the Murdoch empire and have already put Hunt's cabinet position in peril.


Hunt drafted his memo to Cameron on 19 November 2010, initially using his and his aide's private Gmail accounts instead of the government email system, according to counsel to the inquiry. Hunt protested in strong terms about Cable's decision to move against the bid earlier that month by calling in the regulator, Ofcom, to investigate.


Warning that "James Murdoch is pretty furious", Hunt went on to demand "Why are we trying to stop it? … I think it would be totally wrong to cave in to the Mark Thompson/Channel 4/Guardian line".

The BBC director general, Mark Thompson, and other media firms were opposing the bid, saying it would make the Murdoch empire too powerful.


Hunt, who by then had already been extensively lobbied by News Corp and received angry phone calls from Rupert Murdoch's son James, said: "I am concerned because essentially what James Murdoch wants to do is to repeat what his father did with the move to Wapping … The UK has the chance to lead the way on this as we did in 80s with the Wapping move."

In evoking the spirit of Wapping, Hunt was reminding David Cameron of the way Rupert Murdoch was allowed to buy the Times and the Sunday Times after vociferously supporting the Conservatives in his tabloids and holding a secret meeting with Margaret Thatcher at Chequers. Murdoch then famously broke the power of the print unions by moving his operations to Wapping, where police helped staff brave picket-lines.

The phrasing of Hunt's 19 November draft memo appears to have been sanitised before being sent to No 10, with the help of Smith. The inquiry was told there was also in existence an earlier version of Hunt's thinking. The final version said: "It would [be] totally wrong for the government to get involved in a competition issue which has to be decided at arms length."

Hunt's activities on Murdoch's behalf had been the subject of stern legal warnings from his own department, according to the inquiry's counsel, Robert Jay. He said the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's legal director had advised that although it was not directly illegal for him to attempt to intervene, to do so would be "unwise". One arrangement to meet James Murdoch had to be cancelled, but Hunt instead spoke to him privately on the phone. Michel, James Murdoch's lobbyist, told his boss in one of the previously disclosed emails: "Jeremy … has received very strong legal advice not to meet us today as the current process is treated as a judicial one (not a policy one) and any meeting could be referred to and jeopardise the entire process. Jeremy is very frustrated about it but the permanent secretary has now also been involved … You could have a chat with him on his mobile … and I will liaise with his team privately as well."

Four days after receiving this warning, it now appears that Hunt drafted his plea to the prime minister to step in. It is not known what Cameron did as an immediate result. Shortly afterwards, the Conservative-supporting Telegraph newspaper embarked on an elaborate "sting" operation against Vince Cable. On 3 December, two reporters pretended to be his constituents and by what seems to have been an extraordinary coincidence, he confided in them that he had "declared war" against Murdoch.

This was greeted with outrage both by the Murdoch camp and by the prime minister, who declared it was "unacceptable" for Cable to have such bias. Cameron promptly turned the decision over to Hunt. The disclosed documents appear to reveal that Cameron knew perfectly well at the time that Hunt, too, was biased – but biased the other way.

The cabinet secretary, Gus O'Donnell, stated publicly, however, that he himself had taken legal advice and had decided that, although Hunt had made previous public statements sympathetic to the bid: "I am satisfied that those statements do not amount to a pre-judgment of the case."
Hunt's former aide, Adam Smith, was initially reluctant to concede that the culture secretary had backed the Murdoch bid from the outset. Under persistent questioning from Jay, he eventually admitted, however, that Hunt's "personal view" was in fact favourable to the bid.
Leveson inquiry: Adam Smith
Posted by at

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

#Leveson:Tom Watson & Papal Knights - Murdoch Told Blair (BOTH Papal Knights Of Malta) To Make Watson Back Off Phone Hacking Inquiry !

Posted by at

#Leveson #pressreform : Jeremy Hunt LIED About How Many Meetings With NewsCorp/ BSKYB Took Place !

Posted by at

#Leveson #pressreform :Jeremy Hunt - A Company Owned By His Brother




Momentarily flummoxed, Jeremy decides to phone a friend

Not many people know this, but Jeremy Hunt has a younger brother called Charles. Charles used to have a company selling non-apparel cloth (bedding) via direct mail. Right at the end of its ill-starred life, this company – Peacock Blue – acquired one Jeremy Hunt as Company Secretary. Jeremy then made a loan to his brother, declared as ‘to help with his company Peacock Blue’. Then the company went under, and Mr *unt (Snr) resigned. Along the way, however, there are some odd anomalies in this caper. 




Charles Hunt is an accomplished self-publicist. Google him in the context of entrepreurial, marketing and business magazines, and he’s had a feature about himself in most of them at one time or another. He does nevertheless seem to be a bit vague about when his company Peacock Blue started up. Was it…
or was it
or was it
or was the Daily Mail perhaps right in printing that ‘Charles Hunt set up his first company, Peacock Blue, in 1997′?
Oddly, none of them are right: it was incorporated on 25th April 1996......read more


http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/exclusive-jeremy-hunt-a-company-owned-by-his-brother-and-an-accounting-coincidence/
Posted by at

#Leveson #pressreform: Tom Watson & Alan Johnson Statements Now Online.

Posted by at

Monday, May 21, 2012

#Leveson #pressreform :Video - Daniel Morgan's Family Deem

Daniel Morgan photo


Daniel Morgan was found axed to death in car park of a London pub in 1987 Photo: ITV News Wales


The family of a private investigator who was murdered have described the latest official report into his death as "useless".

Daniel Morgan was killed with an axe outside a pub in Sydenham on March 10 in 1987. His family claim he was very close to revealing police corruption.

While an estimated £50m has been spent on 'inquiries and investigations' since that time, his family continue to fight for the truth about why he died.

Today they met with police and prosecutors to discuss the state of the investigation into his death.

In a joint report by the Crown prosecution Service and police, a total of 17 points of "good practice" were published. What was also highlighted in the report were failures surrounding the use of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005.

This is what Daniel Morgan's family have described as "useless."

Despite five police investigations, nobody has ever been found guilty of the murder.....read more ALSO featuring an interview with Alastair Morgan.

http://www.itv.com/news/wales/2012-05-21/daniel-morgans-family-to-quiz-police-and-cps/
Posted by at

#Leveson #pressreform : Daniel Morgan report cites police and prosecution flaws

Daniel Morgan 
 
 
 
Daniel Morgan was found with an axe in his head in a south London car park in 1987

Related Stories

The collapse of a trial of three men charged with committing one of Britain's most notorious unsolved murders has been blamed on failures by police and prosecution.

The conclusions are from a new report into the case of the murdered private investigator Daniel Morgan, killed in 1987 in Sydenham, London.

It said boxes of potential evidence were not disclosed to the defence.

Six investigations have failed to find Mr Morgan's killer.

The report was conducted jointly by the Crown Prosecution Service and Metropolitan Police and said four boxes were left in storage, instead of being disclosed to the defence, three of which were relevant to the trial proceedings.

This resulted in the collapse of a trial at the old Bailey last year.

Axe in head

The report also said several "supergrass" witnesses were not properly handled.

Mr Morgan, who was originally from Llanfrechfa, near Cwmbran, and ran a small private detection agency, was found in the car park of a pub with an axe in his head.

Until his death Mr Morgan was in partnership with Jonathan Rees, whose company Southern Investigations has been linked to alleged email hacking.

The BBC's Tom Symonds said it has been claimed Mr Morgan was killed because he had uncovered evidence of police corruption in south London.

Initial investigations failed to get to the bottom of the case, because, it was alleged, of police corruption.

But in 2006 a new inquiry, codenamed Operation Abelade 2, began and Mr Rees and two other men, Garry and Glenn Vian, were charged with Mr Morgan's murder.

Then in March 2011 the case against them was thrown out because of the prosecution's failure to disclose evidence.

'Clear oversight'

The fresh review of the case concluded the three crates of documents not disclosed to the defence, which related to an earlier money laundering case, were relevant to the proceedings.

“Start Quote

The purpose of the review was to identify potential good practice and learning for both police and prosecutors for future cases”
Met Police/CPS report
 
The report said: "It became apparent that there had been a clear oversight in respect of these three crates.

"Whilst they were already within the police… they had not been entered in to the police records, nor ever assessed. This was clearly an error.

"These three crates had gone unnoticed and were overlooked, whilst stored amongst many other crates."

The report also blamed the handling of three so called "assisting offenders", often known as "supergrasses".

One, known as Witness B, claimed to have seen the murder take place. However, the report found he was allowed to contact the senior investigating officer on the Morgan murder team, in breach of rules preventing this.

Assisting offenders are only supposed to talk to those responsible for debriefing them.
'Witness unreliability'

The report also said the judge in the case found Witness B was "probably prompted by a senior police officer to implicate Glenn and Gary Vian".

He had also been tipped off that he had been caught lying about his father's death and given the chance to think of an explanation.

Background details about another key witness, Witness A, were not discovered, and a third witness, C, gave police details of other murders which he had got from a missing persons website.

The report added: "This was a truly exceptional case in terms of a combination of factors, namely its age; the size and the number of linked operations; the enormous volume of material generated, particularly unused, and the fact that all three of the... witnesses were undermined, post charge, by factors that adversely affected their credibility.

"In addition there was a lack of scientific evidence."


Alastair Morgan 
 
Daniel Morgan's brother Alastair said he believes he has been placed under surveillance
Cressida Dick, the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and Alison Saunders, chief crown prosecutor for CPS London, issued a joint statement following the report's publication.

It said: "This case, as the trial judge said, was of an exceptional scale and complexity, with over three quarters of a million documents gathered over 20 years being examined.

"The issues around the disclosure exercise were such that we could not guarantee that all relevant material had been identified, considered and disclosed so as to ensure a fair trial. A further factor related to the unreliability of critical witnesses.

"To this end, the purpose of the review was to identify potential good practice and learning for both police and prosecutors for future cases.

"What the review was not was an investigation into allegations of corruption; nor was it intended to serve the purpose of an investigation for police disciplinary purposes."

The statement added that the recommendations identified within the review would now be implemented by both agencies. This includes new guidance for using supergrasses.
Surveillance claims

The murder of Mr Morgan was raised at the Leveson inquiry into media standards and ethics in February in evidence from former Metropolitan Police detective and BBC Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames.

She told the inquiry that she and her husband, Det Ch Supt Dave Cook, were placed under surveillance by the News of the World after he appeared on Crimewatch seeking information about Mr Morgan's murder.

Ms Hames told the inquiry that Southern Investigations had "close links" to Alex Marunchak, the newspaper's crime editor in the late 1980s.

In a statement, she said: "I believe that the real reason for the News of the World placing us under surveillance was that suspects in the Daniel Morgan murder inquiry were using their association with a powerful and well-resourced newspaper to try to intimidate us and so attempt to subvert the investigation."

Alastair Morgan, Daniel Morgan's brother, said his family believed they too had been placed under surveillance following a critical development in the case in 1998.

News International said it had "no comment" to make on Ms Hames's statement to the Leveson inquiry.

More on This Story

Related Stories

From other news sites

Posted by at
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)