“There was not insignificant obstruction to the Panel’s work. At times the contact between the Panel and the Metropolitan Police resembled police contact with litigants rather than with a body established by the Home Secretary to enquire into the case, and to which the Metropolitan Police had promised to make ‘exceptional and full disclosure’.
“The Panel concludes that, despite the express commitment by the Metropolitan Police in the Terms of Reference to support the Panel’s work, the Metropolitan Police did not approach the Panel’s scrutiny with candour, in an open, honest and transparent way, making exceptional and full disclosure of relevant documents. The way in which material was disclosed or withheld had the effect of making the Panel’s work more difficult.”
If you are gullible enough to accept the Met’s explanation for this delayed disclosure at face value, do note that there has been no reason given for why materials found in January are now only being acknowledged in May.
(Also note the deft and vague “number of years” – the appointment of the panel was announced in 2013.)
There can be no good reason for the non-disclosure of these materials and for the delay in admitting they exist.
This is simply a continuation of the evasive and obstructive non-disclosure practices of the Met throughout this whole matter.
The Met did not like – and do not like – the concentrated scrutiny that comes with an inquiry such as that conducted by the Daniel Morgan panel.
The Met would much prefer to deal with the short attention spans of time-poor and story-hungry media.
The problems identified by the Daniel Morgan panel, which I set out in this video, are still present in the Met.
Our thoughts should be with Alastair Morgan and the Morgan family at this latest let-down.
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The news about the royals and hacking, well summarised and analysed by Joshua Rozenberg at his Substack, brings us back to the start of a circle.
For the phone hacking story only came about because of the royals.
The story came about because the Fleet Street press of the time – with their well-connected links with the Metropolitan police and the private investigation mini-industry, and unchecked by fearful politicians – sought access to information from the voicemails of the royal household.
Because the royal household became involved, the matter was passed to different police officers at the Metropolitan Police, who then raided and took compelling evidence from private investigators.
And in Scotland Yard that evidence was stored, and it became relevant to civil claims some years later, and then suddenly the scope and extent of tabloid phone hacking became apparent.
But without the royal household connection, the crucial evidence would not ever have been seized and stored, and without that evidence being available for later litigation, the hacking story may never have emerged.
What happened shows the practical importance of the monarchy to our politics, regardless of constitutional theory and conventional wisdom.
It seems only the monarchy has any autonomous power when the police and the media and the politicians collude.
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Such crude phone hacking now seems from another age – technologically, culturally, politically, legally.
After the current crop of cases it may well be that the phone hacking litigation comes to an end.
Prince Harry’s various cases will then perhaps be the other bookend to that provided by the original hacking of the royal household telephones.
But as the parties attend hearings at the Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand, the sophisticated surveillance and data retention by the state and technology companies continues at an unimaginable scale, again unchecked by either politicians or the media.
The phone hacking of a media generation ago seems like a garden shed affair compared with a huge urban conurbation of the exercise of “investigatory powers”.
Any abuses and misuses (or even uses) of the current technology will, in turn, probably never come to light so as to horrify.
Unless, of course, the abuses and misuses (and uses) affect the royal household.
And only then, maybe, will we ever get to hear about it.
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This evening the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police announced their resignation.
Good.
This was the senior police officer who supervised the operation that resulted in the murder of Jean Charles de Menezes and who obstructed the work of the Daniel Morgan inquiry.
This was the senior police officer who acted more like a shop steward for their police officers rather than the people’s commissioner of the police.
They were forced to resign.
Good.
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But.
There is a problem here beyond the failings of this one senior police officer.
A structural problem about how the Metropolitan Police is a law unto itself – an effectively ungovernable mass of individuals permitted to routinely inflict coercive force on others without any meaningful accountability.
Yes: it is a Good Thing that the police are not under the direct power of any minister or other politician – that the police have absolute operational independence.
But this absolute operational independence should not be at the cost of an absolute lack of accountability.
Power tends to corrupt, and coercive power tends to corrupt absolutely.
As and when there are failings of the Metropolitan Police there is a mix of defiance (the “thin blue line” or “not in their shoes”), evasion and misdirection, and sometimes outright misinformation.
Any response, in fact, other than accepting and owning mistakes.
And these are the officers who can inflict their coercive powers on others on the basis of mere ‘reasonable suspicion’ – but refuse to be accountable to the public even on the basis of virtual certainty.
How do you solve this problem?
How do you have a police force that is operationally independent of the government – but also does not become an unaccountable abuser of its own powers?
Who should watch the watchmen – and how?
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This is from a submitted comment under one of my posts on the Daniel Morgan independent panel report (of all things):
‘Now, why would DavidAllenGreen want to assist the corrupt Establishment in hiding the Truth from the British public. Does Green hold the public in contempt too?’
The rest of the comment, and the commenter’s earlier submitted comments, will not be published, because I cannot vouch for the substance of the serious allegations.
But the lack of this publication does not mean, I hope, that I wish to assist the corrupt Establishment in hiding (either capital-T or lower-case-t) Truth/truth from the British public or indeed from anybody else.
Indeed, this blog has done as much as it can to set out commentary in respect of the serious and substantiated findings of ‘institutional corruption’ against the metropolitan police.
I have even done a video film for the Financial Times on ‘institutional corruption’ in the metropolitan police, which is hardly an example of the establishment protecting the establishment.
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But to gain traction with any serious charges of corruption, one needs a methodical, evidence-based approach.
An approach where the ‘c’ word – corruption – is the natural description of what is otherwise set out in detail and is sourced.
There is no doubt that there is widespread corruption, for that is the nature of those with power – and there is no doubt that more could be done by the media to expose the corruption.
But nothing useful is gained by putting the cart before the horse – or the dinghy before the national flagship.
There are different ways of going about it – and because this blog prefers an evidence-based approach in its commentary that does not mean that it is an establishment stooge.
(Perhaps this blog would say that, wouldn’t it?)
The difficulty with making out charges of corruption or of other serious failures is not in making the accusation – which is easy – but in making the charge difficult to evade or dismiss.
Of course, in this post-truth age of hyper-partisanship it may well be that sources and details are not enough – and here on thinks of the accumulation of adverse information about Donald Trump or Boris Johnson – but if anything is to ever have impact, it will need to have some substance to it.
The ‘corrupt Establishment’ is deftly skilled in brushing off even the most serious of complaints and is especially good at deflection when there is more heat than light.
In making it as difficult as possible for things to be deflected is not to hold anybody in contempt.
It is instead to takes things seriously.
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Having set out what the Daniel Morgan independent panel meant by ‘institutional corruption’ in my last post, and having done a Financial Times video on how the panel applied that definition to the metropolitan police, the obvious next questions is whether any other public bodies would also come within this definition.
Or is it a term that can only apply to the metropolitan police in respect of specific matter over a specific period?
If the term ‘institutional corruption’ is to have any import, it must presumably be capable of being applied to other institutions and in respect of other corruption.
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To remind ourselves, this is how the panel defined corruption in its report:
‘The Panel has adopted a broad definition of corruption for the purposes of its work.
‘The definition below is based on the key elements of dishonesty and benefit, and allows for the involvement of a variety of actors and a variety of forms of benefit:
‘The improper behaviour by action or omission:
‘i. by a person or persons in a position of power or exercising powers, such as police officers;
‘ii. acting individually or collectively;
‘iii. with or without the involvement of other actors who are not in a position of power or exercising powers; for direct or indirect benefit :
‘iv. of the individual(s) involved; or
‘v. for a cause or organisation valued by them; or
‘vi. for the benefit or detriment of others; such that a reasonable person would not expect the powers to be exercised for the purpose of achieving that benefit or detriment.
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More succinctly, the test for corruption can be set out in four stages:
(1) WHAT – acts and/or omissions constituting the improper behaviour;
(2) WHO – by a person or persons in a position of power or exercising powers (and this may involve other people too);
(3) WHY – for the direct or indirect benefit of the person(s), their organisation or other people; and
(4) REASONABLENESS – a reasonable person would not expect that WHAT to be done(or not done) by WHO for that WHY reason.
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The panel saw the following failings by senior managers as fulfilling the WHAT + WHO + WHY + UNREASONABLE requirements:
‘i. failing to identify corruption;
‘ii. failing to confront corruption;
‘iii. failing to manage investigations and ensure proper oversight;
‘iv. failing to take a fresh look at past mistakes and failures;
‘v. failing to learn from past mistakes and failures;
‘vi. failing to admit past mistakes and failures promptly and specifically;
‘vii. giving unjustified assurances;
‘viii. failing to make a voluntarily commitment to candour; and ix. failing to be open and transparent.’
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Such corruption would be ‘institutional corruption’ according to the panel as follows:
‘when […] failures cannot reasonably be explained as genuine error and indicate dishonesty for the benefit of the organisation, in the Panel’s view they amount to institutional corruption”
The key term here is ‘dishonesty for the benefit of the organisation’.
Accordingly the full test for ‘institutional corruption’ appears to be:
WHAT + WHO + WHY + UNREASONABLE + BENEFIT OF ORGANISATION
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The recent scandal of the post office prosecutions comes to mind as another situation that would meet this definition – especially the knowing non-disclosure and attempts to mislead the court.
The panel themselves mentioned ‘the report of the mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, the report by Mark Ellison QC on his review concerning the Stephen Lawrence investigation, the report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel and the subsequent report by the Right Reverend James Jones KCB, the report of the Gosport Independent Panel, and the work of the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire.’
And I am sure some of you can think of others.
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The independent panel report on Daniel Morgan found that the Metropolitan police was – and is – institutionally corrupt.
To dispute this finding – let alone to attempt to repudiate or refute it – requires you to do one (or both) of two things.
Either you have to challenge the facts on which the finding is based – and this is difficult in respect of the Daniel Morgan report, which is comprehensively sourced and footnoted (and all the report’s critical findings would also have been put to those criticised for their response as part of the preparation of the report).
Or you have to challenge the definition itself.
And so this blogpost sets out the definition adopted and then applied by the panel in the compilation of the report.
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The relevant part for the definition is deep inside the report, on pages 1022 to 1025 of this pdf (page numbers 1017 to 1021 of the document itself).
The starting point is the terms of reference for the panel, which included:
‘The purpose and remit of the Independent Panel is to shine a light on the circumstances of Daniel Morgan’s murder, its background and the handling of the case over the whole period since March 1987.
‘In doing so, the Panel will seek to address the questions arising, including those relating to:
‘[…] the role played by police corruption in protecting those responsible for the murder from being brought to justice and the failure to confront that corruption […].’
(Please note that in this post I break the paragraphs of the report out into sentences for flow and sense.)
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The panel, however, did not just proceed from the terms of reference, but sought to understand what ‘corruption’ meant in this context:
‘The Terms of Reference give a vague formulation of […] the role played by police corruption in protecting those responsible.
‘There are two possible interpretations of this.
‘It could mean that,
‘i. one or more police officers became aware after the murder of who was responsible and protected them; or
‘ii. one or more police officers who were not aware of who was responsible for the murder committed corrupt acts for their own reasons, and in so doing compromised the investigation with the result that there was no evidence capable of proving who was responsible for the murder and of bringing them to justice.’
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The panel then said that it was taking its term of reference,
‘[…] the role played by police corruption in protecting those responsible for the murder from being brought to justice and the failure to confront that corruption […]’
to mean,
‘whether there was any police corruption affecting the investigation of the murder and making it impossible to bring whoever was responsible to justice’.
Here the panel had regard to the metropolitan police’s own admission that there had been a ‘failure to confront the role played by police corruption in protecting those responsible for the murder from being brought to justice’.
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So that it how the panel was to interpret its term of reference.
But this does itself not tell us what the ‘corruption’ word means.
As the panel noted:
‘The Panel’s Terms of Reference do not include a definition of corruption.’
As the terms was not defined in there terms of reference, the panel had to work out its own definition.
In doing so, the panel looked at other definitions and uses of the word:
‘The Panel has therefore developed its own definition, drawing upon the definitions of corruption and corrupt behaviour used by relevant bodies.
‘Such bodies include the Independent Police Complaints Commission and its successor organisation, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, the National Police Chiefs Council, the College of Policing and the Metropolitan Police.
[…]
‘To inform its analysis, the Panel has drawn upon the report of the mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, the report by Mark Ellison QC on his review concerning the Stephen Lawrence investigation, the report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel and the subsequent report by the Right Reverend James Jones KCB, the report of the Gosport Independent Panel, and the work of the public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire.
‘These inquiries and reports provide important insights into serious failures of a variety of public services, including but not limited to the police, and address the complex issues of accountability and corruption.’
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Having had regard to how other inquires and reports have defined and used the word ‘corruption’, the panel also considered the common definitions and uses of the word:
‘The generic definition of corruption is ‘dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery’.
‘This definition suggests that for dishonest conduct to amount to corruption the person acting corruptly must be someone in power or exercising powers.
‘This definition would apply to police forces, prison, probation and healthcare services, or other organisations serving the public.
‘In these settings, ‘corruption’ may denote the misuse of authority in terms of deviance from the law, professional norms, ethical standards or public expectations.
‘In common parlance ‘corruption’ is also used to refer to the venal behaviour of persons who do not hold positions of power, but who do have something to sell, or who act as corrupters in that they bribe persons exercising powers to commit corrupt acts: it follows that people within and outside the police may be involved in ‘corrupt behaviour’.’
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Having had regard to these other definitions and uses, the panel then went back to its own terms of references:
‘The Panel’s Terms of Reference require it to consider, primarily, wider questions relating to corruption.
‘It is asked to address:
‘i. ‘police involvement in the murder’.
‘By any reasonable person’s definition, if police officers commit or assist in planning a murder, it is not only the most serious crime of taking a person’s life, but it is also the gravest breach of the duties of a police officer.
‘ii. ‘the role played by police corruption in protecting those responsible for the murder from being brought to justice and the failure to confront that corruption’.
‘The ‘corruption’ is not explained further, but the Terms of Reference refer to the fact that ‘in March 2011 the Metropolitan Police acknowledged “the repeated failure of the MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] to confront the role played by police corruption in protecting those responsible for the murder from being brought to justice”.
‘iii. ‘the incidence of connections between private investigators, police officers and […] the media and alleged corruption involved in the linkages between them’.
‘To do this, the Panel has adopted an expansive approach to ‘corruption’, including the conduct of the police and the behaviour of other individuals linked to the police or involved in corrupt activity with them.’
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So having considered how the term ‘corruption’ is or had been used elsewhere – from similar reports to common parlance, and having also considered what the word must mean in the context of the terms of reference, the panel then set out the definition of ‘corruption’ for the report.
It was a broad and deliberately flexible definition:
‘The Panel has adopted a broad definition of corruption for the purposes of its work.
‘The definition below is based on the key elements of dishonesty and benefit, and allows for the involvement of a variety of actors and a variety of forms of benefit:
‘The improper behaviour by action or omission:
‘i. by a person or persons in a position of power or exercising powers, such as police officers;
‘ii. acting individually or collectively;
‘iii. with or without the involvement of other actors who are not in a position of power or exercising powers; for direct or indirect benefit :
‘iv. of the individual(s) involved; or
‘v. for a cause or organisation valued by them; or
‘vi. for the benefit or detriment of others; such that a reasonable person would not expect the powers to be exercised for the purpose of achieving that benefit or detriment.
‘The Panel has used this definition to consider the conduct of the police officers involved in the investigations of the murder of Daniel Morgan.
‘The Panel includes in its wider definition of corruption some instances of failures on the part of senior officers/managers, acting as representatives of their organisations.
‘The documentation reveals the following wide range of actions and omissions by senior postholders on behalf of their organisations; many of these actions and omissions have been identified in the reports of other independent panels and inquiries:
‘i. failing to identify corruption;
‘ii. failing to confront corruption;
‘iii. failing to manage investigations and ensure proper oversight;
‘iv. failing to take a fresh look at past mistakes and failures;
‘v. failing to learn from past mistakes and failures;
‘vi. failing to admit past mistakes and failures promptly and specifically;
‘vii. giving unjustified assurances;
‘viii. failing to make a voluntarily commitment to candour; and ix. failing to be open and transparent.’
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The panel were also aware that important in understanding any practical definition is an understanding of what is not included:
‘[…] failings do not all automatically fall within the definition of corruption. Some may result from professional incompetence or poor management.’
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And now the panel comes to what it meant by ‘institutional corruption’:
‘However, when the failures cannot reasonably be explained as genuine error and indicate dishonesty for the benefit of the organisation, in the Panel’s view they amount to institutional corruption.
‘A lack of candour on the part of the Metropolitan Police in respect of its failings is shown by a lack of transparency, as well as prevarication and obfuscation.’
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The panel then amplifies or illustrates this ‘institutional corruption” term elsewhere in the report:
‘The family of Daniel Morgan suffered grievously as a consequence of the failure to bring his murderer(s) to justice, the unwarranted assurances which they were given, the misinformation which was put into the public domain, and the denial of the failings in investigation, including failing to acknowledge professional incompetence, individuals’ venal behaviour, and managerial and organisational failures.
‘The Metropolitan Police also repeatedly failed to take a fresh, thorough and critical look at past failings.
‘Concealing or denying failings, for the sake of the organisation’s public image, is dishonesty on the part of the organisation for reputational benefit and constitutes a form of institutional corruption.’
[…]
‘When failings in police investigations are combined with unjustified reassurances rather than candour on the part of the Metropolitan Police, this may constitute institutional corruption.
‘The Metropolitan Police’s culture of obfuscation and a lack of candour is unhealthy in any public service.
‘Concealing or denying failings, for the sake of the organisation’s public image, is dishonesty on the part of the organisation for reputational benefit.
‘In the Panel’s view, this constitutes a form of institutional corruption.’
[…]
‘Unwarranted assurances were given to the family, and the Metropolitan Police placed the reputation of the organisation above the need for accountability and transparency.
‘The lack of candour and the repeated failure to take a fresh, thorough and critical look at past failings are all symptoms of institutional corruption, which prioritises institutional reputation over public accountability.’
The report also provides explicit illustrative examples of institutional (as opposed to non-institutional) corruption on pages 1073-1075 of the pdf (page numbers 1069-1071).
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The report describes the careful consideration that went into defining both ‘corruption’ and ‘institutional corruption’.
The challenge, therefore, for those who wish to dismiss the finding of the independent panel that there was (and is) institutional corruption at the metropolitan police is either to deny the examples or to fault its definition and application.
It may be that some of those defending the metropolitan police see nothing (that) wrong in the internal solidarity and reputational protection that the panel describes as ‘institutional corruption’.
That it is not denied that bad things happened, but that they cannot be described as ‘institutional corruption’.
They may just not like such a term being used of such things.
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Given the care with which the panel considered and then defined (and then applied) the word ‘corruption’ that was expressly part of its terms of reference, any casual knee-jerk dismissal will not be sufficient.
A critic has to do better than to shake their head.
As I have set out in this Financial Times video, the panel have made out a substantial charge of ‘institutional corruption’ – and so this now requires an equally substantial response from the metropolitan police.
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In this Financial Times video out today – no paywall! – I have sought to set out how the 1,200 page, three volume independent panel report on Daniel Morgan substantiates the core charge of ‘institutional corruption’ at the metropolitan police.
Please click through and watch it – and leave any comments below.
(The more clicks and views, the more likely I will be able to do more law and policy videos at the FT – so if you value my law and policy commentary, please do have a look.)
Is the Met 'institutionally corrupt'?@FT video on the #DanielMorgan report and its implications
First: corruption and other failings do not only go in one direction.
The problem that is most associated with the Morgan case is that corruption meant that the original investigations did not go far enough.
And this report certainly details the failings of those first investigations.
But what those following the case will perhaps not appreciate is that the later investigations can be regarded as having gone too far.
In particular, the manner in which the most recent investigations went about procuring and even contriving evidence so as to get the prosecutions is uncomfortable reading.
When the court threw out the prosecutions in 2011, it has to be said that the court was right to do so.
There were serious problems about how the prosecution case had been put together.
And botched, over-zealous investigations and prosecutions serve nobody – and even create false hopes
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Second, and I will set out in more fully in a Financial Times video later this week: the panel substantiate their finding of ‘institutional corruption‘.
The panel define this term with care and show what comes – and what does not come – within the definition.
The panel then applies the defined term consistently, and the report provides a number of sourced examples illustrating institutional corruption – and showing implicitly why no lesser term would be as apt.
Those – such as former metropolitan police commissioner Ian Blair – who aver that there is no evidence of institutional corruption either have not read the report or are being dishonest.
The evidence is there – detailed and sourced and evaluated – and it is difficult if not impossible to gainsay that it fulfils the defined term.
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Third: we may know more why the successive investigations and prosecutions failed, but we are no nearer knowing who murdered Daniel Morgan, and why.
If anything, the report shows the weaknesses of a number of theories about why Daniel Morgan was murdered – for example, the claim that Daniel Morgan was about to expose police corruption.
The murder case is still open – and, indeed, the report even points to a couple of new lines of enquiry.
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And finally: some (minor) criticisms.
The numberings of sections and paragraphs of the report are difficult to follow – with paragraph numbering re-starting completely (and confusingly) with each chapter, and this makes it difficult to cross-refer between different parts of the report.
The report should have had a table of recommendations and conclusions – for currently the recommendations (many of which are important) and conclusions are scattered throughout the report and hard to find.
But these criticisms go to form, rather than substance.
In substance, the report will be hard to dislodge as an indictment, and it needs a stronger defence from the metropolitan police than a pretence that there is no evidence of institutional corruption at all.
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Techies have a phrase for it: ‘garbage in, garbage out’.
Or GIGO, for short.
What this means, of course, is that the quality of the outputs of any given process are determined by the quality of the inputs.
This basic, rather obvious point is often missed by those who demand ‘inquiries’ into all sorts of apparent state failures.
The emphasis is often placed on it being ‘judge-led’ or whatnot – that is, the form that the inquiry should take.
But this is to prioritise form over substance.
And this is because any inquiry – and indeed any formal decision-making process such as a trial – is only as good as the information to which it has access.
If you control the flow of information to an inquiry (or trial) you then have significant control over the outcome.
In particular, if you control what information the inquiry does not get – even though that information is relevant and available – then you, in effect, neuter the inquiry.
This is why any duty of disclosure is a crucial element in respect of any inquiry.
If the police (in the examples of the Hillsborough inquiry and the Daniel Morgan independent panel) or the post office (in respect of the horizon scandal) deny documents exist, or refuse to give access to information, or simply refuse to disclose incriminating or embarrassing evidence, then the inquiry will be undermined.
And this is regardless of the qualities of the judges or other heads of the inquiry, or the scope and eloquence of the terms of reference, or the public interest in the matter.
GIGO.
And any entity that faces criticism or embarrassment – or even criminal liability – will not willingly disclose evidence which can be used against it.
Nor will the individuals that comprise those entities.
They will hire specialist lawyers, skilled and experienced in ‘managing’ disclosure – who will ensure the interests of their clients are protected without any law being actually broken.
All of this should not be any surprise.
And so why the obligations of disclosure are perhaps the most important thing to get right if you want any inquiry to be of any use.
Not who is the judge or on the panel, or what the terms of reference are, and so on.
Let the inquiry get the evidence that matters.
Otherwise: GIGO.
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This outstanding Channel 4 News item – a brilliant piece of television journalism:
After 34 years and five failed police inquiries into the murder of Daniel Morgan, a damning report has accused the Metropolitan Police of “institutional corruption” and putting its own reputation above proper investigation. @adavies4 reports.https://t.co/VK1AdMkV9a
There's a lot to write about the Daniel Morgan report, but wanted to lead off with the central question, which is how, if the panel's account of their dealings with Cressida Dick are true, she cannot and should not remain in her job: https://t.co/bHpOjltILo
