How Much Did Rebekah Brooks know about the Daniel Morgan Murder

Opening segment Crossposted from Byline – do chip in and support my column on the criminal media nexus there if you can

Rebekah Brooks worked at News of the World for all but two years from 1989 to 2003. How much did she know know Southern Investigations and police inquiries into their role in the murder of Daniel Morgan?

We can all make mistakes.

In my last piece I erroneously said there was only one mention of the Daniel Morgan murder in the News of the World. In 1989, soon after the CPS dropped charges  against him in a second murder investigation, the Sunday tabloid published an interview with Jonathan Rees, Daniel’s former partner.

The interviewer, News of the World’s crime editor Alex Marunchak, failed  to mention that he had by then formed a successful business relationship with Rees and his private detective agency, Southern Investigations.

Fast forward eleven years, and there’s one more mention of Daniel on April 16 2000 .

UPDATED@ Alastair Morgan to @RupertMurdoch “You are in a unique position to help us finally lay Daniel to rest.”

With considerable speed and grace, on Monday 16 March, Rupert Murdoch replied to Alastair’s letter, promising to co-operate with the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel inquiry, and explaining how News Corp’s Management and Standards Committee have already complied with requests from the police and the IPCC.

Questions about the role of News of the World and surveillance of chief investigating officer and his family were part of James Murdoch’s formal written submission to the Leveson Inquiry

My original blog on the letter is below. 

An Appeal for Information on the Daniel Morgan murder and 28 year coverup

Tomorrow marks the 28th Anniversary of the murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan, and his family’s amazing decades-long campaign for justice. The police corruption around the most investigated murder in British criminal history has been described by an assistant Metropolitan police commissioner as one the biggest stains on Scotland Yard’s history. But Daniel’s murder also leads straight back to the doors of the British press and its relationship with private investigators.  It is “the cradle where the dark arts were born” as a senior police officer once described it to me.

1987: within months of Daniel Morgan’s Murder, a police Suicide

 

 From the blog of Neil Chenoweth, who has done more than most to track News Corp’s PayTV career. At the end of this blog about Ray Adams, former Met commander and deputy head of NDS security (reporting direct to Murdoch himself), Chenoweth sketches out an interesting timeline around the murder of Daniel Morgan (alleged to be about police corruption) and the suicide of policeman, Taffy Holmes.

More News of the World background: Miskiw, Mahmood and the MET

Another piece on News of the World -cross posted from Bellingcat and introduced by Eliot Higgins

Over the past two years my “regular contributor” has written on all things Leveson, phone hacking, and police corruption, with much of their work gathered on the Brown Moses Blog – Hackgate Files.  Now they’ve come to Bellingcat to continue their work, beginning with a look at Mazher Mahmood (aka the Fake Sheikh) and the Metropolitan Police.

Miskiw, Mahmood and the MET

In January 2004, a journalist from the News of the World (NOTW) was interviewed by MET police on suspected criminality resulting from Operation Motorman. It was GREG MISKIW.

Yet just a few weeks later, MET police were enthusiastically commiting to a £1million+ collaboration with the NOTW on a newspaper ‘sting’. This time the journalist was MISKIW’S investigations desk close colleague – MAZHER MAHMOOD.