The excoriating findings of the Daniel Morgan inquiry published last month were already familiar to those with one wary eye on the practices of the Metropolitan Police. The failings disclosed by the independent panel set up to examine the gruesome murder in 1987 of Morgan, a private investigator, can no longer be seen as a one-off. Nor can the investigative failure or corruption uncovered be located in a few bad apples. The dereliction of responsibility revealed by Baroness O’Loan, who led the panel, is not a failure of one Commissioner. The malfeasance goes to the very top of a dysfunctional and suspect government department. The failings are persistent and endemic.
It has become clear over the years that the core problem is located in the CID, the web of corruption it wove which kept it in place, the ignominious and dishonorable conduct of those responsible for overseeing its activities—successive Commissioners, Home Secretaries
