The killing of Daniel Morgan has become news again following fresh criticism of London’s Metropolitan police in an independent report.

The report talks of ‘incompetence’, ‘‘venal behaviour’ (read: corruption) and ‘managerial and organisational failure’ in relation to the 1987 investigation.

Morgan was operating as a private detective in an agency that would go on to be heavily involved with national tabloid newspapers in a subsequent phone-tapping scandal when he was murdered in an axe attack in a South East London pub car park. It is believed that he was investigating police corruption indirectly linked to proceeds from the Brinks-Mat gold heist of 1983 (featured in ‘The American Compendium of British Crimes’) and the criminal underworld in South London. His close associate, Alan ‘Taffy’ Holmes—a former police officer who was believed to have been working with Morgan in uncovering corruption in the Met police—committed suicide later in the same year.

The conclusion reached by the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel has obvious echoes of the 1999 Stephen Lawrence Inquiry’s findings that the force’s response to the black teenager’s murder had been characterised by ‘institutional racism’ , a case also described in detail in the ‘Compendium’.

The Met has said that there is still a chance Daniel Morgan’s case would be solved. We will see.