Daniel Morgan (private investigator)

Daniel Morgan was a private investigator who was murdered in Sydenham (south east London), in March 1987. He was said to have been close to exposing police corruption.

Morgan's death has been the subject of several failed police inquiries, and in 2011 it was at the centre of allegations concerning the suspect conduct of journalists with the British tabloid News of the World.

This unsolved murder has been described as a reminder of the culture of corruption and unaccountability within the Metropolitan Police Service, London's main police force.

Daniel Morgan was born in Singapore, the son of an army officer. He grew up with an elder brother and younger sister in Monmouthshire, where he attended agricultural college in Usk before spending time in Denmark gaining experience of farming.

Daniel Morgan had an exceptional memory for small details, such as car registration numbers, and in 1984 he set up a detective agency, Southern Investigations, in Thornton Heath, South London.

He married in his late twenties and moved to London where he and his wife settled and had two children.

On 10 March 1987, after having a drink with Jonathan Rees, his partner in Southern Investigations, at the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, Morgan was found dead in the pub car park next to his car, with an axe wound to the back of his head. Although a watch had been stolen, his wallet had been left and a large sum of money was still in his jacket pocket. The pocket of his trousers had been torn open and notes he had earlier been seen writing were missing. Subsequently, a match to the DNA sample found on Morgan's trouser pocket was apparently made. Morgan was alleged to have been investigating drug-related police corruption in south London before his death.

Detective Sergeant Sid Fillery, stationed at Catford police station, was assigned to the case, but did not reveal to superiors that he had been working unofficially for Southern Investigations. In April 1987, six individuals, including Sid Fillery and Jonathan Rees, the brothers Glenn and Garry Vian and two Metropolitan police officers, were arrested on suspicion of murder, but all were eventually released without charge.

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