Daniel Morgan report prompts fresh demand for Leveson Two – inquiry into corrupt connections between police and media
Daniel Morgan: remember that Priti Patel wanted to interfere with the independent inquiry’s report. Won’t it be interesting to see what she does with this latest demand?
The pressure group Hacked Off is saying the report of the Daniel Morgan inquiry shows corrupt collusion between the police and the press.
This has prompted the group to renew its demand for the government to act on the second recommendation of the Leveson Report (remember Leveson?) and start a public inquiry into unlawful and improper conduct between the police and the media.
The Tory government under David Cameron shelved this part of Leveson, years ago – raising suggestions that Cameron was afraid it would reveal unpleasant information about himself and his cronies.
Will this new initiative nudge Boris Johnson’s Tory government – which, if anything, is considered to be much worse even than Cameron’s – into doing the right thing?
Doubtful.
But nothing will happen if nobody does anything.
You can add your voice to the call by signing Hacked Off’s letter to the Home Secretary. The link is at the bottom of this article.
The Daniel Morgan Independent Panel report confirmed that at the heart of the failed police investigations into Daniel’s death was a network of corrupt police officers, newspaper reporters and private investigators.
The Panel found that:
“The circumstantial evidence suggests very strongly that intrusive activity suffered by DCS Cook, his wife Jacqui Hames and their family was arranged by former DS Fillery and Alex Marunchak with a view to discrediting DCS Cook and/or to intimidate him and thus disrupt the Abelard One/ Morgan Two Investigation”
DS Fillery was, at one stage, a suspect in the case. Alex Marunchak was a reporter at the News of the World. The Panel confirmed that another former suspect, Jonathan Rees, was making regular payments to Mr Marunchak at this time.
In other words, the Panel considered that the evidence “strongly” supported the allegation that employees of News UK, one of the largest newspaper publishers in the UK, deliberately sought to interfere with a murder investigation on behalf of an individual who later became a suspect in that case.
There is no evidence that News UK carried out a satisfactory internal investigation into these matters. Indeed, the journalist Mr Marunchak was subsequently promoted. The editor of the News of the World at that time, Rebekah Brooks, has also since been promoted within News UK.
There has been no proper independent investigation into these matters or into the nature and extent of corrupt relationships between the police and the press. No-one has been held to account.
To promote public confidence in the police and to uphold the rule of law, we urge you to immediately re-establish Leveson Part Two: the Public Inquiry into unlawful and improper conduct involving the police and national newspapers, including that alleged in the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel Report.
Source: The Daniel Morgan Report | Hacked Off
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