IT is perfectly possible – probable even – that Cressida Dick will survive as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police despite the damning severity of the findings of an independent panel’s inquiry into the murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan in 1987.
Dick may still face a disciplinary hearing, but for the moment she seems secure in her position despite her force being found to be “institutionally corrupt” by the panel, with Dick herself accused of obstruction. The fact that she has already been backed by the Home Secretary Priti Patel and the London mayor Sadiq Khan suggests the odds are in her favour.
That said, Daniel Morgan’s brother Alistair, who has been fighting for justice for more than 30 years, has called on her to consider her position. And there would have been a time when any leader would have fallen on their sword in the wake of such damning findings. But that’s not where we are now.
To be fair, resignation isn’t always the most useful response in these circumstances. Sometimes in-situ leaders are best-placed to carry out the necessary changes. But, then again, the fact that the Met Police Commissioner rejected the panel’s findings almost immediately does not suggest she is willing to seriously consider what she should be doing to address the problems revealed by the inquiry.
The findings are also uncomfortable for Priti Patel whose delay in releasing the report was noted by Baroness O’Loan who headed the inquiry. There were questions for News International too.
But it’s the failings of the Met, not for the first time, that demands some redress.
Read More: How long do the Hillsborough families have to wait for justice?
As far back as 2011 the Met accepted that corrupt officers had shielded Morgan’s murderers. The lack of co-operation with the panel – a lack of co-operation that went on for years, it seems – would suggest lessons have not been learned.
In rejecting the findings, the Met is also thumbing their nose at Daniel Morgan’s family. “At almost every step, we found ourselves lied to, fobbed off, bullied, degraded and let down time and time again. What we were required to endure was nothing less than torture, and that has changed our relationship with this country for ever,” the family said in a statement.
They are not the first family who have found the system wanting when it comes to police accountability. Stephen Lawrence’s family and the families of the Hillsborough victims can all say the same. Memories of Orgreave may also come to the fore.
What is also disturbing is this immediate rejection of independent findings is becoming something of a pattern in British public life. When the Home Secretary herself was found to have broken the ministerial code over claims of bullying last year the Prime Minister rejected Sir Alex Allan’s findings. Sir Alex, the Prime Minister’s adviser on standards, subsequently resigned, not Priti Patel.
Nicola Sturgeon meanwhile rejected a Holyrood committee’s finding that she had misled parliament during the Salmond inquiry (although an independent investigation cleared her of any breach of the ministerial code.)
In the past governments and public bodies would have at least paid lip service to such reports even if they then kicked their findings and recommendations into the long grass. The fear now is we have arrived at the point where we have such a divided binary culture that anyone in the public eye can simply reject findings that they don’t agree with, and no one will raise an eyebrow.
That’s not a healthy state of affairs for anyone.
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