Daniel Morgan - Don’t Mention The Screws

The power of our free and fearless press, now as ever, depends not only on what it chooses to publish, but also on what it does not. In a world of changing narratives, this is a rock-solid certainty. And nowhere has this been more starkly illustrated in the past 48 hours than the response to the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel’s report.

Daniel Morgan

After the Panel’s findings were at long last published on Tuesday last, the press identified one target for its ire: the Metropolitan Police. The Murdoch Times told readers “Met accused of corruption over murder investigation”, while the Guardian was more or less on the same page with “‘Institutionally corrupt’: Daniel Morgan inquiry condemns Met”.

Looks like the Met is to blame ...

... yep, it does look that way ...

And the Daily Mail went full Dacre as it thundered “ROTTEN TO THE CORE … Met branded ‘institutionally corrupt’ over infamous murder … Cressida Dick fights for job after blocking key evidence from inquiry … Savage report greatest crisis for Yard since Stephen Lawrence affair”. But this was a highly selective reading of the report.

... in fact, the Met is DEFINITELY to blame ...

It is selective because it - rightly - castigates the Met, but omits any mention of the press, especially the late and not at all lamented Screws. The key paragraph of the Panel’s report is 458: “The Panel has found evidence of corruption in the linkages between serving Police officers and private investigators, and in particular with Southern Investigations … at the time of Daniel Morgan’s murder and afterwards. The Panel has also found corruption in the linkages between Southern Investigations and former Police officers … who continued to obtain information and assistance from former colleagues within the [Met]”.

... so don't look over here ...

... or at her. Or else

That’s the bit the press is telling you about. Here is what they aren’t: “The documentation indicates that these linkages were used in an illegal trade in confidential information, much of it Police information, via private investigators to the media. In particular, the information was sold to the News of the World, the media organisation named in the panel’s terms of reference and which accounted for an increasing proportion of Southern Investigation’s business by the early 1990s. The involvement of serving Police officers in trading in confidential information obtained illegally is a form of corruption. It was also a breach of the rules of professional conduct for editors”. Former Guardian man Nick Davies had more.

“Daniel Morgan panel [report] (par 169) says evidence ‘strongly suggests’ that [a] News of the World journalist worked [with] a suspect for [the] murder to ‘discredit and/or intimidate’ [a] senior detective ‘and thus disrupt’ [the] murder inquiry. NoW knew about this and did nothing”. Which sounds like the surveillance of Dave Cook and Jacqui Hames.

Steven Barnett of Westminster University has reminded us “This was precisely what Leveson Part 2 was designed to investigate. It was cancelled by the government”. Brian Cathcart of Kingston University added that the report “says her company took part in a plot to sabotage a murder inquiry. She was told in 2003. Did she really do nothing?”.

At the time the Screws was closed, Ms Brooks, by that time CEO of News International, told staff “there were worse revelations to come in the hacking scandal”. Add to that this revelation from Untold Murder: “Our understanding is that Rupert Murdoch and News UK have not co-operated with the [Daniel Morgan] panel”. Oh what a giveaway!

Seems the “worse revelations” may have been this case. Why we still need Leveson 2.

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