AN independent review has concluded the Metropolitan Police covered up corruption surrounding the murder of a man who lived in Petersfield as a child.

The grandmother of Daniel and Alastair Morgan lived in Liss, then Petersfield, for most of her life, and the boys went to the infant school in St Peter’s Road.

Daniel became a private detective and a father, and was killed with an axe in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, south-east London, on March 10, 1987

It is thought he was about to reveal evidence of police corruption – some of the officers he was drinking with were linked to a ‘car sales’ outlet in Catford.

His family have campaigned for his murder to be properly investigated, saying the five police inquiries and the inquest into what happened on the night he was killed had been ‘cover-ups.’

His older brother, Alastair, was at his grandmother’s home in Station Road, Petersfield, when news of the brutal murder was phoned through.

Alastair, who as a young man did work experience at the Petersfield Herald, said: “I and the family have been campaigning for many years over this to get justice.

“The report clearly says the Met Police was intrinsically corrupt.

“This has caused huge distress to my family, because we have known all long it was a cover-up.”

On the night of his murder, Daniel, who as a youngster had been treated at the Lord Treloar Hospital in Alton for a club foot, was drinking in the pub with detectives from Catford CID, who featured in the subsequent inquiries.

He left the pub and was found dead – with the axe still in his head – soon afterwards.

His family – his mother Isobel was born and grew up in South Harting – were told of his death and their fight for justice began.

But each of the inquiries by the Met Police found no evidence of wrongdoing. Neither did a so-called ‘independent’ investigation by Hampshire Police into the Met’s handling of the affair.

On Tuesday, June 15, the independent review panel released its 1,200-page report

Baroness Nuala O’Loan, chairwoman of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel, said: “The family of Daniel Morgan has suffered grievously as a consequence of the failure to bring his murderer or murderers 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.

“We believe that concealing or denying failings for the sake of an organisation’s public image is dishonesty on the part of the organisation for reputational benefit, and constitutes a form of institutional corruption.”