The Fake Sheikh - a Key Link in Daniel Morgan Murder Cover-Up

Mazher Mahmood's extensive dealings with Southern Investigations require News UK and the Metropolitan police to explain their knowledge and protection of the murder suspects
  • Mahmood was very close to the Morgan murder suspects for over a decade
  • Rebekah Brooks was close to Mahmood and should have known
  • Senior Met Officers ignored constant intelligence about both and aided News of the World
The conviction of Mazher Mahmood last week on three counts of perverting the course of justice at the Old Bailey allows us - after two years of silence because of contempt laws - to reveal evidence that the 'Fake Sheikh'   was the key link between Murdoch's top management, Senior Police and the criminal underworld of Southern Investigations...
CONTINUES. 

 

New podcast ‘Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder’ packs 'Serial'-level intrigue | The Daily Dot

There simply have been no worthy counterparts—until now. Untold aims to explain and investigate one of the most famous murders in British history with the same level of high-end production and watchdog intensity. 

The first episode of the 10-part series sees Jukes lay down the biographical part of Daniel Morgan’s life that lead up to his murder. As expositional first episodes go, it works. While at certain points I just wanted to get on with the investigation, it's a necessary first step that pays off later. It’s not until the second episode that we really get into the details following Morgan's death.

One of the factors that made Serial a success was the way WBEZ saw pacing and music as integral parts of a story on par with the facts and interviews. Untold’s opening vignettes capture this well, teasing the audience of the story to follow. Atmospheric music is used to great success in setting scenes, something that often fails modern podcasts, and '80s-era South London comes alive with meticulous care.

Morgan's brother Alistair accompanies Jukes through much of the story, emphasizing that while this is a podcast that’s going to be downloaded because it’s entertaining, this is a high-stakes investigation with personal consequences. A life-changing burden where, even 30 years later, hunting for the truth of what really happened on the night Daniel was murdered continues to fuel and haunt the Morgan family.

Untold is a more than just the story of an unsolved murder. It’s a story of jealousy, grief, police corruption, and what happens when accountability goes missing from culture. It's the rare podcast that encapsulates everything that’s great about the medium and proves there’s always room for thoughtful, detailed storytelling.

Untold is released every Thursday, and is available wherever you download podcasts.

 

Untold: Has Britain Produced a Podcast to Rival ‘Serial’?

Untold is far from just a straight retread of Serial though and it is precisely its confidence in its own resolutely British setting and tone that makes it so very unique and compelling. This is a murder mystery that is very much “souf London” and is not afraid to wear that fact on its sleeve. One of the things that actually makes the show almost more compelling that its NPR progenitor is the way in which it wraps out the troubles and concerns of the wider nation and age into this individual act of violence. Serial was tightly focused on the case of Adnan Syed although, in considering his conviction, did pay some lip service to the role that anti-Muslim sentiment may have played. Untold is fascinating because, while the case itself is brutal and absorbing, even more fascinating is the fact that, trundling along the background, one can almost hear the echoes of miners’ strikes and National Front marches.

 

9 true-crime podcasts you should download immediately

Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder Brand-spanking new and equipped with an impressive website, Untold is dedicated to examining the facts around the 1987 unsolved murder of Daniel Morgan. The tale, according to host British screenwriter and journalist Peter Jukes, "moves from back streets of London, through the highest echelons of Scotland Yard, to the offices of Rupert Murdoch's best selling newspapers, to the doors of Number Ten Downing Street." 

Dive right into Episode 1, the "Luckiest Mugging in the World."

 

Better Than Serial? Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder Is Your New Podcast Addiction

Who killed Daniel Morgan?

That’s the question on the lips of anyone whose stumbled across Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder, a new podcast that’s been dubbed Britain’s answer to Serial.

Released in 30-minute instalments, the series is three episodes in and already quickly accumulating a loyal following. Those who ferociously devoured Serial, Making A Murderer and The People Vs OJ Simpson will find themselves hooked immediately. And there are many mainlining this podcast; it’s been downloaded more than 200,000 times and has topped the iTunes chart.

This comes shortly after BBC Panorama investigated Morgan’s death.

But what’s the story behind this new must-listen podcast? Here’s a quickfire rundown on Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder.

What’s it about?

In 1987 the body of private detective Daniel Morgan was found in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham. Morgan’s death was truly horrific – he was found with an axe wound in the back of his head. Three decades on the case is still unsolved.

Who was Daniel Morgan?

Morgan, 37 at the time of his death, was a PI who founded his own agency, Southern Investigations, partnered with Jonathan Rees. Morgan was born in Singapore and raised in Monmouthshire, Wales. Growing up with a club foot, he spent much of his early life alone and developed a sharp eye for detail that would eventually lead to his future career as a private detective.

Morgan worked on a farm in Denmark before marrying in his late 20s and moving to London with his wife and two children.

Why has the case been left unsolved?

Morgan was allegedly close to lifting the lid on corruption at Scotland Yard, with an expose in now-gone paper News Of The World reportedly brewing. He died before any story was published, and in the years since five police enquiries have been launched costing £50 million.

Rees, DS Sid Fillery, brothers Glenn and Garry Vian and two Met police officers were arrested on suspicion of his murder but released without charge. The killer has never been found, and the most recent prosecution fell apart in 2011.

Who’s behind the podcast?

Morgan’s brother Alastair Morgan raised £10,000 through a crowdfunding campaign to get the project up and running. He teamed up with writer Peter Jukes, author of phone hacking book Beyond Contempt, to put the 10-part series together.

Jukes guides the listener through the story, described by the podcast’s official site thusly:

“The phone hacking scandal that closed News of the World was big, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. At the bottom of that iceberg of ‘dark arts’ – hacking, burglary, bugging, and bribing bent cops – is the body of Daniel Morgan…

“The story moves from back streets of London, through the highest echelons of Scotland Yard, to the offices of Rupert Murdoch’s best selling newspapers, to the doors of Number Ten Downing Street.”

It also happens to have one high-profile supporter in the form of Hugh Grant.

Where and when can I download it?

New episodes are released every Thursday through iTunes and the official Untold website. With 10 episodes in the series expect it to wrap up in early August… and for it to be a major topic discussion around the work water cooler all summer.

 

Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder: 'British Serial' tops iTunes podcast chart with over 200,000 downloads | News | Culture | The Independent

Are you an armchair detective, looking for your next murder mystery fix? Look no further, as a podcast, dubbed the ‘British Serial,’ is making waves, topping the iTunes chart after being downloaded over 200,000 times.

Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder tells the complex and murky story surrounding the murder of a private investigator, whose body was found in a London pub’s car park with an axe in the head.

The incident - often described as London’s most notorious unsolved case - occurred outside the Golden Lion in Sydenham in 1987, the P.I. allegedly looking to expose corruption at Scotland Yard. 

Despite five police enquiries, costing the public upwards of £50 million, nobody has been blamed for the murder, the most recent prosecution reportedly collapsing in 2011.

Only three of the 10-episodes have been released so far, but already the podcast has gained notoriety in countries outside the UK, according to the Evening Standard.

 

'The British Serial': Podcast on mysterious murder of Daniel Morgan tops iTunes chart | Crime | News | London Evening Standard

A podcast examining the unsolved murder of a private investigator, found with an axe in his head in a London pub car park, has topped the iTunes chart.

‘Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder’, pitched as the British Serial, had been downloaded over 200,000 times by the time its third episode was released this week.

The complex, murky tale begins with 37-year-old Mr Morgan’s murder outside the Golden Lion in Sydenham in 1987 amid allegations he was preparing to expose corruption at Scotland Yard.

In the three decades since, there have been further allegations of police corruption and claims of links between his agency Southern Investigations and the now defunct News of the World.

But despite five police inquiries costing £50 million, nobody has ever been brought to justice, with the most recent prosecution collapsing in 2011. 

READ MORE

Family of Serial murder victim Hae Min Lee slam podcast fans for defending her killer Interview With a Murderer, Channel 4: criminologist David Wilson speaks to Bert Spencer, suspected of killing Carl Bridgewater, in documentary Streamline your sounds: everything you need to know about Spotify, Tidal and Apple Music For the victim’s brother Alastair Morgan, the 10-episode podcast, initially launched following a £10,000 crowdfunding campaign and put together by writer Peter Jukes, was the best way to get the story heard when it seemed nobody else was interested.

He told the Standard: “Peter came up with the podcast idea. 

“I think the Serial podcasts had been an eye opener for a lot of people and he thought ‘why don’t we try something like that?’”

The murder is often described as London’s most notorious unsolved case, but the most common reaction from listeners, many of whom have tuned in from outside the UK, has been one of surprise that they didn’t already know about it.

Alastair Morgan, 67, said: “It’s unquestionably as important as the Stephen Lawrence case in my view but we were let down by the last Labour government. They wouldn’t do a thing about it.”

Wait for justice: The Morgan family with Daniel (centre) and Alastair (rear) He went on: “We’re very pleased because obviously there’s a lot more people that will be learning about it who would otherwise never have done that.

“The thing is I know that most people don’t know about it whereas everyone knows about Stephen Lawrence, for good reason. 

“Because of the press relationship in this case, far fewer people know about Daniel. This has been a way to try to redress the balance of that.”

An inquiry set up by Theresa May in 2013 is expected to release its long-awaited report on the case in the Autumn.

The podcast team believe they have uncovered compelling new evidence along the way. But for Daniel's brother, one of the most significant things is there will now be so many more eyes on the inquiry.

He said: “Now people do know about this because they’re watching it and are concerned about it and they’re telling people about it. That’s really the message behind the story.

“If nobody was watching, nobody was looking, then it’s kind of like ‘who cares?’”

The Islington resident said: “It’s a hell of a story, it’s a long story but absolutely fascinating. 

“For me, I have to keep on and on going though it again and that’s horrible. But what I saw going on in there, I won’t be silenced and I won’t let that pass.”

 

A British 'Serial' podcast with a media scandal twist

On March 10, 1987, at 9:40 p.m., the body of Welsh private investigator Daniel Morgan was discovered in the parking lot of a seedy London pub. The 37-year-old was struck three times with an axe in the back of the head and once more in the face, where the axe remained. His Rolex watch was gone, but £1,100 cash sat in his pocket. If none of this seems familiar, it’s because what is widely considered the most investigated murder in British history rarely lands in the mainstream press. U.K. journalist Peter Jukes stumbled on the Morgan case four years ago while investigating the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. “Intrusions, bribery, bugging apartments, tapping phones and hacking voicemail—we call them the dark arts, and they began with the Daniel Morgan murder,” says Jukes.
At the time of his death, Morgan and his business partner, Jonathan Rees, were drinking together, despite their ever more acrimonious relationship: £18,000 had recently disappeared from the firm in a supposed robbery that Morgan suspected was a set-up. Morgan was having an extramarital affair with a woman who now lives with Rees. Det. Sid Fillery, assigned to investigate the crime, later went into business with Rees, trading illegally acquired information with the press. At the time of his murder, Morgan had allegedly approached News of the World with a massive story—which Morgan estimated to be worth £250,000—revealing a web of corrupt police officers operating a cocaine smuggling ring.
“This is a story about media corruption, so the media won’t touch it, and why?” asks Jukes. “Because many of them have been involved.” In almost three decades, five murder inquiries and one collapsed trial have brought no answers or solace for Morgan’s family. “We’ve been lobbying for years for public scrutiny of the case,” says Daniel’s brother, Alastair, now 67. “The last government was totally unsympathetic to us, which infuriated me because I thought, ‘Can’t you see how serious this is?’ ” They didn’t, or wouldn’t, and so the murder went unsolved.
But the media landscape has since shifted. The massive success of the podcast Serial and Netflix’s Making a Murderer provided renewed interest in true crime stories, a new medium to better tell Morgan’s complicated and intertwining story, and a full bypass of the traditional media channels that had previously blocked them. And the advent of crowd-funding could help fund the project without depending on government or media.
Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder podcast appeared on the U.K.-based crowd-funding site Byline, the “new platform for truly independent journalism,” last December; $19,000 from more than 200 donors even included some familiar famous faces. Hugh Grant, a victim of the phone-hacking scandal, supported the first episode.
Jukes is the host, merging old facts with new evidence as it appears. “We’ve recently conducted a five-hour interview with a former police officer who went undercover at Morgan’s rogue detective firm—taken over by Rees and Sid Fillery within a year of Daniel’s murder,” he says. Even when the lead investigator retires and immediately goes into business with the main suspect, Jukes remains an unbiased reporter. “There’s a burden on me to step up and be the objective narrator,” he says. As with Serial, listeners can visit the website to see photographs, newspaper clippings and evidence.
Alastair hopes the podcast will garner global interest, but, he says, “I’m just grateful, after all these years of being told to go away, that someone was interested.” His unabashed interviews carry the 10-episode series and confirm the swirling rumours about Daniel’s plan to expose the police. “‘All police are bastards,’ ” Alastair recalls his brother saying. But even he has questions. “I’d be lying if I said I knew who did what, but I have no doubt who was involved. The question now is how did they get away with it?”
Untold probably won’t solve this mystery. Still, “there is a kind of justice in transparency, even if there are no convictions,” says Jukes. “They might get away with murder, but not without infamy.”

 

The 12 Best True Crime Series To Watch After Making A Murderer – Tito's Angels

Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder, Acast A private investigator is murderered outside the Golden Lion Pub in South East London, 1987 – and they never find the killer?! This is one to the most investigated murder cares in British history, with alleged police corruption and media cover-ups, and is now the subject of a gripping new podcast. The weekly 10-part series is hosted by journalist Peter Jukes and features Daniel's brother, Alistair.

 

Journalism podcast investigating notorious unsolved murder of Daniel Morgan goes to number one on iTunes – Press Gazette

Untold tells the story of Alastair Morgan’s 29-year campaign to find out why his brother was murdered and to expose the police corruption which saw five investigations fail to bring those responsible to justice.

Presented by Peter Jukes, the podcast was originally broadcast in six parts with the help of £10,000 in crowdfunding. Now, with the help of sponsorship from website developers Squarespace, it has beeen revampeed and expanded to ten parts availanble on the podcasting distribution platform Acast.

Jukes said that the podcast has already generated tens of thousands of downloads and that his investigation has brought new material to light about the circumstances surrounding Daniel Morgan’s murder.

He said: “It is like LA Confidential: its about the media, and corruption and corrupt police.

“It’s about the nexus of police, private investigators and confidential inquiries that took of in the 1980s.

“They were bribing cops, getting personal information, bribing and blagging and the News of the World was very closely involved. Phone-hacking was the benign side of it.”

 

Daniel Morgan murder: Unsolved 1987 crime puts the Met Police in the dock | Crime | News | The Independent

The Golden Lion is under new management now. The old-style banquettes have gone, and the décor is fresher, less brown. But since long before gastropubs were a glint in a developer's eye, and long after those hostelries which wouldn't or couldn't move with the times were closed and converted into flats, the Golden Lion remains an unashamed community boozer with cheap beer, live bands, and the occasional coach outing to the races.

A former Victorian music-hall palace of varieties, its presence on the main road that runs through Sydenham in south-east London is firmly rooted in the coming of the railway and of the suburbs that created a better life for tens of thousands of city dwellers.

But while the pub's exterior and interior may have enjoyed a facelift, its car park, to the rear, is still a gloomy spot. The trees that once fringed it are gone.

It was here, on Tuesday 10 March, 1987 in this car park, that the Golden Lion's association with one of London's most notorious murders was established – and with it an association with one of the most scandalous instances of British police corruption ever. It was here that a private detective called Daniel Morgan was brutally killed.

 

Podcast tells unsolved Daniel Morgan axe murder story - BBC News

A new crime podcast is hoping to shed light on the unsolved murder of a Welsh private investigator. Daniel Morgan was found dead in a London pub car park in 1987. Despite five police investigations, nobody has been convicted of his murder. His brother Alastair Morgan has joined investigative journalist Peter Jukes to tell the story of his brother's murder in weekly episodes. Mr Morgan told BBC Wales: "The full story has never been told in a coherent, logical way so that people can understand what really took place here. "It's a really outrageous case. I want the public to have the chance to hear what happened," he added.

Image caption Alastair Morgan with journalist Peter Jukes

Image caption He was attacked shortly after drinking in this pub on 10 March 1987

Image caption Filming in the car park where Mr Morgan's body was found When Daniel Morgan's body was found in March 1987 he had been attacked with an axe shortly after drinking at the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham. Police investigations continually failed to convict anyone for the crime, and the case has been riddled with accusations of corruption and cover-ups. An independent panel has been established to examine the circumstances of Mr Morgan's death, and the persistent failure of police to convict anyone. Mr Morgan, from Llanfrechfa, near Cwmbran, was 37 when he died. Peter Jukes, the investigative journalist who is presenting the new podcast, said he was "astonished" to hear the details of the story once he began his research. "We are hoping for witnesses to come forward that will jog people's memories. There's a lot of open-source material available, so people can begin to put together a story themselves, and maybe make new connections." As part of the recording process, Alastair Morgan revisited the scene of his brother's murder with the podcast's production team.

Image caption Daniel Morgan, a father-of-two, was found with dead with head injuries caused by an axe Mr Jukes praised the podcast genre as a means of telling in-depth, complicated stories. "A podcast is great because you're limitless in what you can do. You can move around, and you can rely on a single voice - a presenter or, in Alastair's case, the brother of a murder victim," he said. The producers are hoping to emulate the success of the Serial podcast, which tells one true story over the course of a series. The first series raised questions about the conviction of an American man for murdering his high school girlfriend. The Daniel Morgan Murder podcast will be released to registered subscribers before Christmas, while it will become more widely available for download in the new year.

 

Serialising the Daniel Morgan murder case: a ‘baffling net of intrigue and malice’ - The Justice Gap | The Justice Gap

INTERVIEW: ‘At the bottom of the phone hacking scandal, there’s a bigger scandal. I’m staggered I didn’t know about it.’ So says Peter Jukes, a playwright-turned-investigative journalist, whose name might be familiar from his work live-tweeting the phone hacking trial in 2012. The scandal he’s referring to is the unsolved case of the murder of Daniel Morgan. ‘I’ve given so many talks about the hacking trial, and when I get onto the Daniel Morgan story, the jaws hit the floor. Everyone knows about Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson and Milly Dowler, but no-one knows this story.’

Daniel Morgan’s murder in 1987 has been dubbed ‘the most-investigated unsolved murder in British history’.

On the night of Tuesday 10 March, 1987, Morgan – a private investigator with Southern Investigations, an agency he ran with partner Jonathan Rees – was found in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in south-east London with an axe embedded in his head. The 29th anniversary of Daniel’s death has just been marked, but the murder remains unsolved. Daniel’s brother Alastair has campaigned tirelessly for three decades for the murderers to be brought to justice – see Alastair’s interview with Justice Gap editor Jon Robins here.

Jukes first came across the case when he was covering the phone hacking trial, a significant seven-month undertaking in which he claimed to type over 450,000 words. After writing a blog saying he’d missed a mortgage payment for the first time in his life, and couldn’t afford to cover the trial off his own back, he began a crowdfunding campaign and successfully raised £20,000 to enable him to attend every day of events at the Old Bailey.

Crowdfunding is what has allowed him to work to bring the Daniel Morgan murder case to light – he has raised nearly £10,000 from supporters in order to produce a Serial-style podcast examining the intricacies of the case. ‘I was sitting in the pub with my co-producer and we were talking about Serial. Then the idea came to me – why don’t we do this as a podcast? We’re independent, we don’t have to rely on major news organisations – we can bypass all of that and get direct to our audience.’

‘The great thing about crowdfunding is that people become part of it and you don’t have to deal with a middleman,’ Jukes continues.

You have complete autonomy and your story isn’t going to be squashed by a news organisation, too many of which have a vested interest in suppressing parts of this story. ‘Alastair is very wary about people taking over and misrepresenting the story, but I think I won his trust over by getting to know him over a period of three or four years.’ Jukes called Alastair with his proposition and he immediately agreed. The pair secured sponsorship from the same company which backed Serial, and production began.

Piecing together the jigsaw Despite five police murder inquiries and a collapsed Old Bailey trial, Morgan’s murder remains inexplicably (from the outside, at least) a ‘whodunnit?’ So what could a podcast chronologically sequencing a story which has already been subject to so much investigation reveal? ‘Every time I write an article about it, someone comes forward and tells me something new – there’s a new piece of the jigsaw puzzle in place’, relates Jukes.

But although new information is welcomed, it’s hard to know if Jukes and the wider Morgan family are any closer to revealing the truth about what happened to Daniel. The case is one of staggering complexity, drawing together ‘three strands of corruption: private investigators, corrupt police officers and a media which was compromised.’

Morgan’s murder, his family claim, was an execution with the aim of silencing an investigator who was poised at the time to expose high-level corruption at the Met. ‘Usually with police corruption it takes years to come out and there’s a whistle-blower in the media who is pushing to expose it. In Daniel’s case it’s more and more clear to me that he was the whistle-blower.’

This story cannot come out because the immune system, if you like, for the state – the media – who should be exposing this, is itself infected. Daniel’s brother Alastair was initially perplexed by what he saw as the media’s lack of interest in his family’s campaign. ‘He didn’t understand why it was so difficult for him to get the story into the mainstream press, until the phone hacking scandal exposed the deep connections between the media and the police.’

Jukes says he feels ‘completely bewildered’ by seeing other journalists back away from the story for fear of losing their jobs – ‘in a way, that appals me almost as much as the police corruption. I was at the Press Gazette Awards the year before last with Alastair, and a very, very senior Mirror journalist who had worked at the News of the World came up to me. I said, you’d better meet Alastair Morgan – everyone knows the story on Fleet Street, and he said: “Oh Alastair, it’s such a terrible story, but of course I could never publish it for political reasons.” So imagine that! They still won’t cover it because 30 years ago some very high up executives in these various news organisations worked with criminals.’

Net of intrigue A self-trained journalist, Jukes credits his background as a playwright and author for enabling him to help bring the Daniel Morgan murder case to the fore of the public consciousness. ‘Unless you’re careful, this case is incredibly complicated. People go down a rabbit’s hole of interconnection and conspiracy which makes it very difficult to follow. Stories are my stock in trade. I think what I’ve brought to bear in this case is the storytelling aspect – what is the story here, how do we keep it emotional and accessible to an audience who would otherwise be baffled in this net of intrigue and malice.’

When I ask whether Jukes thinks something like this could happen again today, he is resolute. ‘I’m not convinced it won’t happen again. I don’t think that there’s enough in place in terms of police reporting structures and the IPCC; I don’t think the press has learned its lesson in terms of its cover-ups, and I don’t think the government has really come to grips with the problem.’

We touch briefly on Leveson, and Jukes opines about the refusal by John Whittingdale, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, to approve the costs provisions of section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. If these came into force, it would mean that where a claim is brought against a publisher, such as a national newspaper, which is not a member of an approved regulator, the court will punish the publisher—even where it has successfully defended the claim—unless the court is satisfied that the issues could not have been solved by the regulator. In plain terms, it would mean a sea-change for libel challenges.

‘For a journalist like me, who gets a lot of libel threats, it means no longer being chilled by threats of defamation. It’s a big scandal – all the democratic processes can fail because one culture minister wants to keep the press sweet.’

Jukes is also anxious to see ‘Leveson 2’ – the second part of the Leveson Inquiry which was promised by the Prime Minister and, Jukes hopes, would tie up the loose ends of the first inquiry. ‘The police-press relationship, the inappropriate behaviour, the way that senior cops and News International executives were all over the Daniel Morgan murder and did nothing about it… It’s completely shocking, and I think we’ll only clear this up if Leveson 2 happens.’

Daniel Morgan with his children, Sarah and Daniel. Glimmer of hope But even if Leveson 2 takes place, the odds of a criminal conviction for Daniel Morgan’s murder remain disappointingly slim. ‘The evidence is all either lost or missing, everything has been undermined by the original process of the investigation – it’s just an impossible case now to prosecute in terms of criminal convictions.’ But there is a glimmer of hope – in 2011, the Home Secretary, Theresa May, proposed a Hillsborough-style panel of inquiry into the case, and the panel is due to report this autumn. Jukes hopes to supplement the initial six episodes of the podcast after the report is released.

More than anything [the Daniel Morgan case] is a cautionary tale of when all the checks and balances in the system fail and how the worst crime—murder—can go unpunished for so long. ‘It’s a lesson for us all, that our parliament isn’t necessarily the best, our press is not the most free, our police aren’t the most incorruptible – and we need to make sure that they are.’

Part of the solution, Jukes says, is guaranteeing the public’s commitment to investigative journalism, and by implication, the livelihood of journalists like him. With circulations dropping, large media organisations are no longer investing in this line of work – ‘there’s a crying need for investigative journalism, but it’s the easiest thing for newspapers to cut.’

Jukes goes on: ‘A lot of journalism is becoming PR and corporate fluff, or sponsored content. I think we should all step up and become more citizen journalists, question the facts we have, compare sources. I feel that audiences are much more sceptical of mainstream coverage – they’re no longer taking one news source for granted. There’s a huge appetite out there, it’s just about finding a way to make it pay.’

Through Byline, an online crowdfunding and media outlet platform which enables authors to fund their work through the support of their readers, Jukes hopes that independent journalism can continue to thrive, ‘so that people can feel some benefit from paying for journalism, and don’t expect anything for free.’

As the interview draws to a close, I ask what else Jukes has in the pipeline – the first six episodes of the podcast are due to be released to the public via iTunes in April, while crowdfunders have been given early access. He talks briefly and animatedly about some of his current projects—radio plays, a TV drama about GCHQ—before making an understated admission that he is looking forward to taking a slight break from the ‘dark world’ of the Daniel Morgan case—so far and away from his usual territory. ‘I’m a dramatist and poet. I like musicals. Writing about this case can get quite difficult at times.’

 

Murdered detective's family hope podcast gives new momentum to their search for the truth - Wales Online

The brother of a Welsh private detective who was axed to death hopes a new podcast recounting his murder will help end his three decade fight for justice.

Alastair Morgan, 67, believes the media has failed to give brother Daniel’s murder - which is the most investigated unsolved killing in British history - the profile it deserves.

He hopes the iTunes podcast he has made with journalist Peter Jukes will help build momentum in his quest for answers.

Daniel, 37, from Llanfrechfa in Cwmbran , was found with an axe in his head in a London pub car park in 1987.

More: The brother of murdered private detective Daniel Morgan has been inspired to tell his story by Netflix success Making a Murderer

Despite five criminal investigations nobody has been successfully prosecuted.

Biggest case for half a century Translator Mr Morgan, 67, who lives in London, said: “The (podcast) story is very largely told from the way it happened to me or as I saw it happening.

Alastair Morgan and his brother Daniel (right) “I think this case is as serious as any that there’s been in the last 50 years.”

The Metropolitan Police has since admitted the first investigation attempting to bring Daniel’s killers to justice was blighted by police corruption.

Home Secretary Theresa May MP established the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel (DMIP) to carry out a full review of corruption as it affected the case.

It will also probe the treatment of Daniel Morgan’s family by the police and other parts of the criminal justice system.

The first episode of Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder, which was paid for through crowdfunding and sponsorship, went out on Thursday and nine more half-hour instalments will follow on a weekly basis.

The scene of Daniel Morgan's brutal murder Mr Morgan said a second series may follow.

More: Daniel Morgan murder - brother fears information was destroyed by police

Could be more episodes He added: “The panel is going to report sometime in the autumn and that may precipitate more episodes - we’re not quite sure of that yet.”

Mr Jukes has said his decision to get involved was encouraged by hit Netflix documentary Making a Murderer as well as the success of real-crime US podcast Serial.

Making a Murderer covered the case of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey, who were jailed in 2007 for the murder of Teresa Halbach in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin.

Peter Byrne/PA WireHome Secretary Theresa May who ordered a fresh probe in to the Daniel Morgan murder Serial revisited the case of Adnan Syed, convicted for the 1999 murder of his high-school classmate and former girlfriend, eighteen-year-old Hae Min Lee.

The podcast has been cited as an influence of Making a Murderer which has been downloaded more than 68 million times.

More: Making A Murderer to return for a second series as explosive new details emerge

Probing drug-related corruption Daniel was alleged to have been investigating drug-related police corruption in south London before his death and his brother is convinced he was about to blow the lid.

A trial of four men charged with Daniel’s murder in 2008 subsequently collapsed in 2011, following alleged failures by the police and prosecutors.

Mr Morgan added: “What I’m most keen on in my brother’s case is that the truth comes out - primarily about how the police dealt with it.

“That’s the most important thing to me. It’s all very well for the police to say corruption played a role. But I want people to know what that actually meant - who did what, how it happened.”

'Killers walking the streets' Mr Morgan maintains the people he believes are responsible for his brother’s murder are “walking around the streets today”.

In March 2015 the independent panel issued an appeal for information 28 years after the crime was committed.

Alastair Morgan and his mother Isobel Hulsmann arriving at Scotland Yard for a meeting with the Metropolitan police Mr Morgan also wrote to global media tycoon Rupert Murdoch urging him to help.

The tycoon’s defunct News of the World newspaper has been linked to the case ever since it emerged the tabloid had been spying on the Met’s detective Dave Cook, who was leading an inquiry into Daniel’s murder.

In 2012, evidence heard during the Leveson Inquiry into press standards revealed that Daniel’s detective firm Southern Investigations, whose members included suspects in his killing, had “close links” to senior News of the World news editor Alex Marunchak.

Following the collapse of the murder trial in 2011 the Met apologised to Daniel’s family and made a payment of £125,000 to help with their legal costs. However it did not admit responsibility.

 

A British 'Serial' podcast with a media scandal twist

A British ‘Serial’ with a media scandal twist Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder podcast adds a new layer to a runaway true-crime genre Rosemary Counter June 7, 2016 (Photo illustration by Sarah MacKinnon and Richard Redditt)

On March 10, 1987, at 9:40 p.m., the body of Welsh private investigator Daniel Morgan was discovered in the parking lot of a seedy London pub. The 37-year-old was struck three times with an axe in the back of the head and once more in the face, where the axe remained. His Rolex watch was gone, but £1,100 cash sat in his pocket. If none of this seems familiar, it’s because what is widely considered the most investigated murder in British history rarely lands in the mainstream press. U.K. journalist Peter Jukes stumbled on the Morgan case four years ago while investigating the News of the World phone-hacking scandal. “Intrusions, bribery, bugging apartments, tapping phones and hacking voicemail—we call them the dark arts, and they began with the Daniel Morgan murder,” says Jukes. At the time of his death, Morgan and his business partner, Jonathan Rees, were drinking together, despite their ever more acrimonious relationship: £18,000 had recently disappeared from the firm in a supposed robbery that Morgan suspected was a set-up. Morgan was having an extramarital affair with a woman who now lives with Rees. Det. Sid Fillery, assigned to investigate the crime, later went into business with Rees, trading illegally acquired information with the press. At the time of his murder, Morgan had allegedly approached News of the World with a massive story—which Morgan estimated to be worth £250,000—revealing a web of corrupt police officers operating a cocaine smuggling ring.

“This is a story about media corruption, so the media won’t touch it, and why?” asks Jukes. “Because many of them have been involved.” In almost three decades, five murder inquiries and one collapsed trial have brought no answers or solace for Morgan’s family. “We’ve been lobbying for years for public scrutiny of the case,” says Daniel’s brother, Alastair, now 67. “The last government was totally unsympathetic to us, which infuriated me because I thought, ‘Can’t you see how serious this is?’ ” They didn’t, or wouldn’t, and so the murder went unsolved.

But the media landscape has since shifted. The massive success of the podcast Serial and Netflix’s Making a Murderer provided renewed interest in true crime stories, a new medium to better tell Morgan’s complicated and intertwining story, and a full bypass of the traditional media channels that had previously blocked them. And the advent of crowd-funding could help fund the project without depending on government or media.

Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder podcast appeared on the U.K.-based crowd-funding site Byline, the “new platform for truly independent journalism,” last December; $19,000 from more than 200 donors even included some familiar famous faces. Hugh Grant, a victim of the phone-hacking scandal, supported the first episode.

Jukes is the host, merging old facts with new evidence as it appears. “We’ve recently conducted a five-hour interview with a former police officer who went undercover at Morgan’s rogue detective firm—taken over by Rees and Sid Fillery within a year of Daniel’s murder,” he says. Even when the lead investigator retires and immediately goes into business with the main suspect, Jukes remains an unbiased reporter. “There’s a burden on me to step up and be the objective narrator,” he says. As with Serial, listeners can visit the website to see photographs, newspaper clippings and evidence.

Alastair hopes the podcast will garner global interest, but, he says, “I’m just grateful, after all these years of being told to go away, that someone was interested.” His unabashed interviews carry the 10-episode series and confirm the swirling rumours about Daniel’s plan to expose the police. “‘All police are bastards,’ ” Alastair recalls his brother saying. But even he has questions. “I’d be lying if I said I knew who did what, but I have no doubt who was involved. The question now is how did they get away with it?”

Untold probably won’t solve this mystery. Still, “there is a kind of justice in transparency, even if there are no convictions,” says Jukes. “They might get away with murder, but not without infamy.”

 

True Crime and the Armchair Detective

LAUNCHING AT MIDNIGHT BST on iTunes, Soundcloud and Acast

The development of Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder has been supported by actor and Hacked Off campaigner Hugh Grant among others, Swedish podcasting platform, Acast, and with sponsorship from website developers Squarespace. The podcast follows in the footsteps of international cultural phenomena Serial, The Jinx, and Making a Murderer, by bringing ‘true crime’ historical stories to a mainstream audience.

The ‘true crime’ effect is all the more immersive thanks to Acast’s ‘Rich Media' function. Incorporating links, images and videos into the timeline of the podcast, Acast allows its listener to review legal documents, research contextualising information, and explore the intricate set of clues via their phone, tablet or computer. 

Måns Ulvestam, Co-founder and CEO of Acast, comments

“Serial captured the attention of people around the world, creating a new generation of true-crime enthusiasts. The show’s reach was international, and the UK has not had an equivalent - until now. 'Untold' goes further than Serial, however, because Daniel’s murder represents the tip of an iceberg of corruption within the British policing and media establishment. By unravelling the story through a podcast, the Untold team can circumvent these institutions and have their voices heard, when others might want them silenced.”

Daniel Morgan murder case 'corruption link' with Lawrence investigation - BBC News

Daniel Morgan murder case 'corruption link' with Lawrence investigation 6 March 2014 From the section Wales

 

Possible links between an allegedly corrupt police officer and the investigation into the murder of a Welsh private investigator have been highlighted by the home secretary.

Theresa May told MPs the information was uncovered in the Ellison Report into the police investigation of the murder of Stephen Lawrence.

Daniel Morgan, 37, from Llanfrechfa, Torfaen, was found with an axe in his head in a London pub car park in 1987.

His murder remains unsolved.

An independent judge-led panel of experts is reviewing the police handling of Mr Morgan's murder.

It is examining claims police corruption prevented a conviction, despite five investigations.

Mr Morgan's family believe he was on the verge of exposing police corruption when he was murdered.

They have campaigned for whoever killed him to be brought to justice.

 

'Deeply troubling

' Mr Morgan's case came up in the House of Commons as Mrs May announced a judge-led public inquiry into the work of undercover policy prompted by a review of the case of Stephen Lawrence.

The 18-year-old was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack by a gang of white youths in south-east London in April 1993.

A review by Mark Ellison QC found that a Metropolitan Police "spy" worked within the "Lawrence camp" while a previous inquiry into matters arising from his death was under way. Mrs May described the findings as "deeply troubling".

She told the Commons: "Ellison also refers to possible links between an allegedly corrupt officer involved in the Stephen Lawrence case - DS Davidson - and the investigation into the murder of Daniel Morgan.

"Ellison finds that the Daniel Morgan Panel may therefore uncover material relevant to the question of corruption.

"And so it is key that the Daniel Morgan Panel continues its important work." Mr Morgan's mother Isobel Hulsmann, from Hay-on-Wye in Powys, met Mrs May at the end of 2011 to pursue her campaign for justice.

Mrs May has previously said that the Metropolitan Police had already "admitted that police corruption was a 'debilitating factor' in the original investigation". A trial of four men charged with Mr Morgan's murder in 2008 collapsed in 2011, following alleged failures by the police and prosecutors

 

Coverage of the Daniel Morgan Murder Podcast

““If you haven’t heard this story, ask yourself, why?””