A vicious crime boss, his corrupt police cronies and a scandal that could have been buried for ever

PUBLISHED: 23:29, 7 July 2013 | UPDATED: 00:14, 8 July 2013
The Metropolitan Police is descending into what is possibly the most serious crisis in its existence. 
It is being all but swamped by one claim of misconduct or cover-up after another, which add up to a devastating and fundamental indictment of the force.
In recent months, there has been a relentless series of scandals involving the police, with most of them swirling around the Met.
lawrence
Azelle Rodney, 24, was gunned down in Edgware, north London, in 2005 by a police marksman
Police came under fire for their handling of the racially motivated murder case of Stephen Lawrence (left). Azelle Rodney (right) was gunned down in Edgware, north London, in 2005 by a police marksman
One of the most sickening was the claim that undercover officers had hunted for information to smear the family of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence, in order to head off the damaging inquiry into the botched police investigation of that racially motivated crime.
There have been other claims of malpractice. The police are now said to be about to apologise for the use they made of the identities of dead children to create fake IDs for undercover officers. 
In another development last week, a public inquiry found that a police marksman had no lawful justification for shooting dead 24-year-old gang member Azelle  Rodney in London eight years ago.
And last May, in yet another deeply  troubling case, the Home Secretary set up an inquiry into the murder of private detective Daniel Morgan in 1987.

Shocking

Theresa May announced the creation of an independent panel to investigate the unsolved murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan (pictured) in 1987
Theresa May announced the creation of an independent panel to investigate the unsolved murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan (pictured) in 1987
There have been suspicions he may have been killed because he had uncovered evidence of corruption within the Metropolitan Police. In 2011, Scotland Yard confirmed that corrupt officers had obstructed the original investigation into the killing.
At the weekend, a fresh set of revelations surfaced which were no less shocking.
As the Sunday Times revealed, three Met detectives are claiming that David Hunt, an East End businessman named by a judge last week as the head of an organised crime network, had used corrupt officers inside Scotland Yard to help him evade justice for some three decades.
These revelations are profoundly disturbing. Astoundingly, the Met had tried to throw the book at these three detectives who finally got onto his tail — one of whom, DCI David McKelvey, the former head of the crime squad in Newham, East London, had his career ruined and suffered a nervous breakdown as a result.
These detectives had warned Scotland Yard that Hunt had taken out a contract to kill them and that he had links to corrupt officers and council officials.
But instead, the three found themselves the target of what Mr Justice Simon last week called a ‘misdirected’ inquiry into baseless allegations of corruption — an inquiry which had ‘undoubtedly assisted’ Hunt in his efforts to avoid prosecution after he was arrested for blackmail, threats to kill and witness intimidation.
The scandal also involves Newham council, where an official had warned senior police officers about the implications both for  the Government and council in the run-up to the Olympics if the trial of a council  contractor, who was threatening to blow the whistle on council corruption, went ahead. It didn’t.
The Stephen Lawrence report contained the explosive suggestion that the police inquiry was botched because of a corrupt relationship between certain officers and local gangsters
The Stephen Lawrence report contained the explosive suggestion that the police inquiry was botched because of a corrupt relationship between certain officers and local gangsters
All of this gives rise to two fundamental questions: what has gone wrong with the Metropolitan Police, and what has gone wrong with the system which is patently so badly failing to hold this and other forces  to account? 
For the sake of the many honest, decent, entirely professional police officers it is important to stress that the number of  corrupt officers is relatively small.
The damage they have done, however, is utterly disproportionate to their number. And that is because they have repeatedly escaped being brought to book.
The problem of police corruption goes back many years. At base, it arises from an inward-looking police culture.
Thrown out: Mr Justice Simon (pictured) dismissed attempts by Hunt's lawyers to discredit the reporter who wrote the story
Mr Justice Simon (pictured) ruled that Hunt, who claims to be a legitimate businessman, was involved in fraud, prostitution, money-laundering and 'extreme violence'
It is a culture of self-consciously hard men, who are recruited from among the same kind of folk who turn into career criminals. Such officers tend to despise attempts to impose standards of best practice, and instead fall in with the ducking and diving of the very criminals they are supposed to be catching.
This has probably been exacerbated still further by the arrival in the upper ranks in recent years of officers with university degrees spouting managerial jargon, provoking a contempt which has only reinforced the belief that officers are entitled to act with impunity.

Purge

The problem of police corruption has been tackled spasmodically ever since the Sixties. In the Seventies, the Commissioner Sir Robert Mark conducted an enormous purge of corrupt officers. More than 475 left the Met.
Since then, however, very few have been forced out. Blind eyes have been turned to gross wrongdoing.
As a result, corrupt practices returned, ranging from officers receiving bungs from criminals, planting evidence and stitching people up or stealing cash or drugs. 
In the Seventies, the Commissioner Sir Robert Mark (pictured) conducted an enormous purge of corrupt officers. More than 475 left the Met
In the Seventies, the Commissioner Sir Robert Mark (pictured) conducted an enormous purge of corrupt officers. More than 475 left the Met
Fiercely defending its reputation, the Met tends to behave savagely towards any officer who dares challenge such corruption.
This circling of the institutional wagons has been worsened immeasurably by the politicisation of the police and the top-down control from Whitehall through the ruthless imposition of performance targets. 
Just as with the NHS, the impression must be maintained — through fair means or foul — that all is well with  the police. 
 
  

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To suggest otherwise is to reveal that politicians are failing the public. So to suppress any such suggestion, police whistle-blowers are treated like criminals — while the real criminals, inside the force and out, get away with it.
Whenever scandals do surface, the solution is invariably to impose yet more layers of bureaucracy. This merely ties up good officers in knots while miscreants blithely sail on untouched. 
On occasion, political correctness provides an alibi for corruption. The Stephen Lawrence report, for example, contained the explosive suggestion that the police inquiry was botched because of a corrupt relationship between certain officers and local gangsters.
But this crucial observation was totally swamped by the furore over the report’s allegation of institutional police racism, for which there was in fact no evidence whatever. Now the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, faces a grilling this week by the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee over his apparent failure to hold corrupt Met officers accountable.

Dismal

The fact is, however, that the entire system of police accountability is demonstrably  failing. Earlier this year, the Home Affairs Committee criticised the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) for having ‘neither the powers nor the resources that it needs to get to the truth when the integrity of the police is in doubt’.
This is perhaps not surprising, considering some of the cosy connections that exist between the IPCC and the police.
The dismal fact is that it suits both politicians and the police not to have the boat rocked by a rigorous, truly independent and effective system of accountability.
Indeed, the scandal over David Hunt came to light only through the determination and integrity of a journalist and a judge.
Dismissing Hunt’s allegation that he had been libelled by the Sunday Times, Mr Justice Simon ruled that Hunt, who claims to be a legitimate businessman, was involved in fraud, prostitution, money-laundering and ‘extreme violence’.
And that libel action was brought only because of the remarkable tenacity of reporter Michael Gillard, who first started investigating Hunt back in 1999.
It is worth noting once again that if the proposals of the Leveson Inquiry are enacted, such revelations will become all but impossible. For the exposure of police corruption depends on informal contacts between police sources and journalists.
Yet now these contacts are in jeopardy, because the Leveson report warns officers not to approach journalists but to seek out other ‘confidential avenues in which they may have faith’.
Tell that to DCI McKelvey.
Exposing police corruption crucially depends upon a free Press. The danger now is that both corrupt police and self-serving politicians will be insulated still further from the scrutiny upon which the public interest depends.
m.phillips@dailymail.co.uk