A former suspect in one of the Metropolitan Police’s most notorious unsolved murder cases is suing the detective whose efforts to convict him were branded corrupt by judges.
Jonathan Rees, who was charged with the 1987 murder of Daniel Morgan before being cleared when the case collapsed, has already won a malicious prosecution payout from the Met.
In the latest twist in the case, which has been mired in claims of corruption and incompetence, Rees has taken the first step towards a private prosecution of Dave Cook, the now-retired detective who took charge of the inquiry.
The handling of the case was so troubled that in 2013 Theresa May, the home secretary, ordered an inquiry. The independent panel, which has cost £14 million, is due to report next month on the failure to convict anyone of the murder of Morgan, 37, a private detective who was found with an axe in his head in a pub car park in Sydenham, southeast London.
Cook, a former detective chief superintendent, became the public face of the Morgan inquiry in 2002 when he appeared on Crimewatch in an appeal for information. Shortly afterwards he was appointed senior investigating officer of a revived inquiry.
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Four suspects were charged with murder, including Rees, Morgan’s business partner. Their trial at the Old Bailey collapsed in March 2011 after months of legal arguments and non-disclosure of police documents. Cook, who went on long-term sick leave that year, was criticised by the judge, who ruled that he had deliberately breached guidelines in relation to a key supergrass witness in the trial and probably prompted the same witness to implicate two suspects.
In February 2017 Mr Justice Mitting, who was overseeing a damages claim by the former suspects, ruled that Cook had risked contaminating the evidence and overstepped the mark “even to the point of committing the criminal offence of doing an act tending and intended to pervert the course of justice”.
The judge said of Cook, who has the full support of Morgan’s family, that his motive was to bring those he believed to have been complicit in the murder to justice. Rees won £155,000 in damages from the Met in 2019. His lawyers have now written asking to interview Cook.
Cook’s lawyers have asked for more information before agreeing to the interview and highlighted a serious complaint Cook has made against his former force for “deliberately” misleading Mitting.
Cook said that the Met tried to “silence” him from giving evidence about decisions made by more senior officers during the Morgan murder inquiry. The Met initially dismissed the complaint but has now appointed a detective superintendent to investigate.
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Rees told The Times that Cook eventually would be summonsed to give his account but hoped the two of them could become allies against the Met.
Cook has denied acting corruptly but has said he was given no training in how to handle supergrasses. He declined to comment but a friend described the private prosecution as “a ruse to give Rees the upper hand” when the inquiry publishes its findings.
