A notorious murder case investigated five times at a cost of more than £40 million over the past quarter of a century collapsed yesterday, amid allegations of serious police misconduct.
Scotland Yard hoped that securing convictions for the murder of Daniel Morgan, a private detective who was bludgeoned to death with an axe, would restore its reputation after the original murder inquiry was hampered by police corruption.
But the failure of the case has instead led to accusations that officers perjured themselves and withheld evidence as they tried to get convictions by relying on plea-bargain deals with criminals who turned supergrass. The Metropolitan Police now faces questions about its use of supergrass witnesses.
The collapse of the case also thrusts John Yates, the Acting Deputy Commissioner, into the spotlight once more. Mr Yates, already under fire for his handling of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, took a strong interest in and had overall responsibility for the Morgan investigation.
After 18 months of unreportable hearings at the Old Bailey the full scale of the fiasco can now be disclosed:
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•Three key supergrasses had to be dropped after one was found to be mentally ill, another was shown to be a fantasist and a third was revealed to be a paid police informant of 20 years.
•The detective in charge of the case was accused of perjury and cautioned by the judge to take care not to incriminate himself; two other officers were given judicial cautions against selfincrimination over allegations of withholding evidence.
•The senior officer in charge of the case was left in control of it even after leaving the Met to join the Serious Organised Crime Agency.
•Significant documents in the case are missing and police suddenly found 18 crates of evidence late last year which was relevant to the defence.
The case finally collapsed after four more crates of evidence were found last week at the offices of the Met’s anti-corruption unit.
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Nicholas Hilliard, QC, for the prosecution, said the discovery of the new material 18 months into the trial was “remarkable” and meant the Crown could no longer guarantee to abide by its duty to make full disclosure to the defence. He said the manner in which the case had collapsed was “a matter of considerable regret” and apologised to the Morgan family.
Mr Morgan’s body was found in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, South London, on March 10, 1987. The Chinese axe used to kill him was embedded so deeply in his skull that his killers had been unable to remove it.
A £800 Rolex watch was missing from his wrist but it was clear that this was a gangland murder rather than a violent mugging. Mr Morgan, 37, had been hit four times with the axe and the killers left behind his wallet containing more than £1,000.
The murder led to one of the most protracted homicide investigations in the Met’s history. Scotland Yard says it is not possible to calculate how much it has cost.
But no expense was spared: during one investigation police bought the house next door to that of one of the key suspects, Glenn Vian on Orchard Road, Croydon, so they could bug his conversations.
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The reason the case was pursued with such vigour, while files on hundreds of other unsolved killings gathered dust, was the belief that Mr Morgan’s murder was connected to a network of corrupt police officers. Over the years a number of officers have been arrested.
The latest inquiry was led by Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Cook, who aimed to use powers under the 2005 Serious Organised Crime and Policing Act to offer attractive pleabargain deals to potential witnesses.
In April 2008 the five key suspects were arrested on suspicion of involvement in Mr Morgan’s murder. They were the former policeman Sid Fillery, 64, the dead man’s former business partner Jonathan Rees 59, Jimmy Cook, 56, Glenn Vian, 53, and his brother Garry Vian, 50.
Three of the men — Jimmy Cook, Jonathan Rees and Glenn Vian — were to spend almost two years in prison on remand. Mr Fillery was charged with perverting the course of justice and the others with murder but all vigorously protested their innocence and have now been acquitted.
When legal proceedings began in September 2009, the prosecution was relying heavily on the evidence of three star supergrasses — the career criminals Gary Eaton and James Ward, and Sallyanne Wood, the former girlfriend of Jimmy Cook. But under withering examination from defence counsel they all fell by the wayside.
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The most important witness was Eaton, a man with string of serious convictions including sexual violence, who claimed to have been in the Golden Lion on the night of the murder. In return for his testimony, he pleaded guilty to serious criminal offences but had his sentence cut from a potential 20 years to just three.
Detective Chief Superintendent Cook vouched for Eaton at his sentencing.
But police reports revealed to the court showed that Eaton’s witness handlers were concerned about his reliability. Witness protection officers also expressed concerns that detectives had coached Eaton after he had been found to have lied. In court, Mr Cook was accused by David Whitehouse, QC for Glenn Vian, of “being desperate to nail someone”.
He added: “You allowed this dishonest, mentally ill man [Eaton] to run riot ... because he was your one way of getting this case back to life and ending your career with a real coup.”
The officer denied putting words in the witness’s mouth. But Mr Whitehouse accused the officer of perjuring himself by vouching for Eaton’s reliability at his sentencing hearing. The judge intervened, telling Mr Cook that he was “not obliged to answer any question that may incriminate you in respect of any offence”.
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Once Eaton’s evidence fell, the defence turned to Sallyanne Wood. She claimed to have evidence about the Morgan killing and 34 other murders. Scotland Yard set up a team to investigate her claims, which were found to be baseless. The Crown withdrew Ms Wood’s evidence last November after she was examined by a psychiatrist.
The focus shifted to the evidence of James Ward who had a supergrass deal to give evidence in return for having a 19-year jail term reduced to three years. More than a year into the trial police said they had discovered 18 crates of material about Ward, the existence of which they had failed to disclose to the defence.
The crates contained a wealth of information about Ward’s criminality but also revealed that he had been a paid police informant since 1987. His evidence was withdrawn in January.
Recording not-guilty verdicts yesterday, Mr Justice Maddison, the trial judge, said the police had “ample grounds” to justify arresting and prosecuting the defendants. But he said the withdrawal of the Crown case was the correct decision and represented the end of “a highly unusual” case.