A long-awaited report into the axe murder of a private detective has said the Metropolitan Police should apologise to his family after accusing the force of a “form of institutional corruption” in the way it handled multiple failed investigations.

An independent panel examining the unsolved killing of father-of-two Daniel Morgan in a pub car park in 1987 found “multiple very significant failings” during the initial Met Police investigation.

A second probe by Hampshire Constabulary “did not pursue, to the fullest extent possible, evidence that serving or former police officers were involved” in the murder, the panel found.

There was evidence of “a culture” within the Met in 1987 which allowed “very close association” between police officers on the team investigating Mr Morgan’s murder and “individuals linked to crime”, it concluded.

The panel said Mr Morgan’s family have “suffered grievously” because his killers have never been brought to justice, and the Met Police had failed “to acknowledge its many failings over the 34 years since the murder”.

“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,” the panel said.

Mr Morgan was killed in the car park at the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, southeast London, in March 1987.

Despite five police inquiries and an inquest, no one has ever been brought to justice for killing the father-of-two.

Scotland Yard has previously admitted corruption was a “debilitating factor” in the original investigation.

The independent panel examined questions relating to the murder including police handling of the investigation; the role corruption played in protecting Mr Morgan’s killer; and the links between private investigators, police and journalists connected to the case.

The review into Mr Morgan’s murder was set up in 2013 by then-home secretary Theresa May, the former prime minister.

His brother Alastair told Sky News before the report was published he was hopeful his family would finally get some answers in their three decade-long fight for the truth surrounding the killing.

The findings were due to be released in May, but a last-minute intervention by the Home Office sparked a furious row with the panel and Mr Morgan’s family.

Mr Morgan’s family branded the delay “a kick in the teeth” and called on Home Secretary Priti Patel “to try to understand her limited role in relation to the panel and the need for sensitivity and basic human decency in the exercise of her powers”.

The Home Office insisted that it had an obligation to make the checks and was not seeking to edit the document.

An agreement was reached that a “small team” from the Home Office would be permitted to read the report in advance of publication.

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