Jonathan Rees (1st Claimant) Glenn Vian (2nd Claimant) Sidney Fillery (3rd Claimant) Garry Vian (4th Claimant) v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Mitting |
| Judgment Date | 17 February 2017 |
| Neutral Citation | [2017] EWHC 273 (QB) |
| Date | 17 February 2017 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division |
| Docket Number | Case No: HQ13X02927 AND HQ14X01020 |
[2017] EWHC 273 (QB)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Mitting
Case No: HQ13X02927 AND HQ14X01020
Mr Nicholas Bowen QC (instructed by FREEDMAN ALEXANDER SOLICITORS) for the First, Second and Third Claimants
Mr Stephen Simblet (instructed by GN LAW) for the Fourth Claimant
Mr Jeremy Johnson QC, Miss Charlotte Ventham & Miss Catriona Hodge (instructed by DIRECTORATE OF LEGAL SERVICES, METROPOLITAN POLICE) for the Defendant
Hearing dates: 17th January 2017 to 10 February 2017
Approved Judgment
I direct that pursuant to CPR PD 39A para 6.1 no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic.
The four claimants claim damages against the Metropolitan Police Commissioner ("the Commissioner") for malicious prosecution and misfeasance in public office. On 30 November 2016 I ordered that the trial of liability be dealt with as a preliminary issue. This is my judgment on that issue. After the first mention by name of any individual (other than counsel) I will refer to him or her by surname alone, except in the cases of Glenn Vian, Garry Vian and Jimmy Cook, to whom I will refer by their full name, to avoid confusion. I intend no discourtesy. References to documents are to volume and page number of the trial bundle, save where additional documents were produced during the trial.
The basic facts which gave rise to the police investigations
After dark on the evening of 10 March 1987 Daniel Morgan was killed in the rear car park of the Golden Lion Public House, Sydenham, SE26. He had been struck four or five times to the head with an axe. The final blow was almost certainly struck while he was on the ground and left the axe embedded in his face. The car park was not overlooked. No eyewitness of the killing has ever come forward.
Morgan was a married man of 37 with two children. He and the first claimant, William Jonathan Rees, were the only partners in Southern Investigations ("the partnership"). The principal business of the partnership was private investigation, bailiffs' work and private security. Its office premises were in Thornton Heath. It was profitable and its turnover was increasing, but it had two potential liabilities: an unmet tax debt, estimated by its accountant, William Newton, at £23,400 plus interest and penalties and a claim by one of its customers, Belmont Car Auctions Limited ("Belmont"), for £18,280.62 arising out of the theft on 18 March 1986 of takings entrusted to the partnership carried by Rees. On 5 March 1987 the partnership was given leave to defend Belmont's claim on condition that it paid £10,000 into Court within 21 days.
Rees was a 32 year old married man with three children. His wife was the sister of the second and fourth claimants, Glenn and Garry Vian. Morgan and Rees had each conducted an affair with Margaret Harrison, whom Rees subsequently married.
Glenn Vian was the 29 year old elder brother of Garry Vian, then 27. Both were married, Glenn Vian with three children. Both did occasional work for the partnership.
Sidney Fillery, the third claimant, was a 41 year old detective sergeant stationed at Catford. He and Rees knew each other well. He subsequently took over the management of Southern Investigations while Rees was imprisoned for an unrelated crime.
Operation Morgan
Morgan's body was discovered at about 9.40 pm by Thomas Terry on 10 March 1987. The police were called, arrived at the scene at 9.52 pm and an investigation into the killing, led by Detective Superintendant Campbell commenced. Fillery was an investigating officer until 16 March 1987. He obtained the first witness statement taken from Rees on 11 March 1987.
The focus of the investigation was on the consequences of the theft of the Belmont takings on 18 March 1986, on the movements of Rees and Fillery on 9 and 10 March 1987 and on Rees' telephone calls on the evening of 10 March 1987. The working hypothesis was that the motive for murder was connected to the theft, which was believed to have been a sham robbery of Rees carried out by two police officers working for the partnership part-time. There was evidence that Morgan believed that this is what had occurred and this, together with the need to raise £10,000 to satisfy the condition for leave to defend the Belmont claim, caused such ill-feeling between Morgan and Rees as to provide a motive for Rees to wish to have him killed. Fillery, together with the two police officers mentioned, had attended Belmont's premises and there was evidence, from Peter Newby, the partnership's office manager that Fillery had removed the Belmont office file during the investigation on 11 March 1987 and suppressed it. There were inconsistent explanations of Rees' movements and the persons to whom he had made telephone calls on the night of 10 March 1987 in particular about a 12 minute call which he said was made to him by his wife, but she denied making, at 9.04 pm. Both Glenn and Garry Vian were believed to have played some part in providing security for Belmont on behalf of the company and Glenn Vian had attended the hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice at which conditional leave to defend had been given.
On 3 and 4 April 1987 the four claimants and the two police officers were arrested on suspicion of murder and released on bail.
Thereafter, further evidence was obtained from the company's unqualified accountant Kevin Lennon, then on bail awaiting trial for serious offences of tax fraud. On 28 July 1987 a friend of Lennon, former Detective Chief Inspector Bucknole, covertly recorded claims by him that Rees had asked him to find someone to kill Morgan. When formally interviewed on 21 August 1987, after the covert recording of his conversation with Bucknole was played to him, he admitted that he had told Bucknole about what Rees had said to him. On 4 and 15 September 1987 Lennon made witness statements in which he said that Rees had said, at least a year before the killing, that he would like to kill Morgan and had on at least two occasions asked him to find someone to do so. In the second statement, he said that Rees had discussed the proposed murder of Morgan with Fillery in May 1986.
Campbell's eventual conclusion was that, although he suspected Rees of committing or commissioning the killing, there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against him and none against Glenn or Garry Vian or the police officers, including Fillery. He reported in these terms to HM Coroner. No charges were laid against the claimants or the two police officers. All were released from their bail conditions.
At the inquest, Lennon repeated the allegations made in his witness statements and said that Rees hated Morgan and that, in his opinion, he was determined to kill him or to have him killed and to replace him as a business partner with Fillery. On 25 April 1988 the inquest jury delivered a verdict of unlawful killing.
The Hampshire Police Inquiry
On 24 June 1988, Hampshire Police began to reinvestigate the killing and the Metropolitan Police investigation into it, at the request of the Police Complaints Authority.
The investigation focussed on Lennon's allegations and inconsistencies in the accounts of telephone calls and movements on 10 March 1987 of Rees, Paul Goodridge and his partner Jean Wisden. Goodridge was the uncle of Glenn Vian's wife, Kim. Rees suggested that he was a potential source of the £10,000 needed to fulfil the condition on which leave to defend Belmont's action had been given.
Lennon was interviewed by Hampshire officers on 1 September 1988. He did not impress them. It is not necessary to set out the reasons for their conclusion which was,
"There is no doubt that the credibility of Lennon is diminishing and his truthfulness must now be in question." (2/1506).
Despite that, on 2 February 1989, Rees and Goodridge were charged with murder and Wisden with doing an act tending and intended to pervert the course of justice. The case was referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions and the advice of counsel, including leading counsel, sought. The upshot was that, on the application of the Crown on 11 May 1989, all three were discharged by Farham Justices.
Operation Two Bridges
On a date which I do not know prior to 17 September 1998, Stephen Warner supplied one kilogram of cocaine to an undercover police officer. He asked him if he knew of anyone who would carry out a contract killing. He was introduced to another undercover officer, to whom he supplied a photograph of the intended victim, Jimmy Cook and a Browning automatic handgun. Warner was arrested on 17 September 1998 and charged on 18 September, with conspiracy to murder and to supply Class A drugs.
In a series of interviews, initiated by an approach by Warner to Detective Inspector Critchell, between 30 September 1998 and 24 February 1999, Warner provided information about the Morgan murder. What he said was distilled into a statement signed by him on 22 January 1999. He said that in 1989 or 1990 Jimmy Cook told him that he and Glenn Vines (sic) had committed the murder of a partner in a private investigation firm in Thornton Heath. He said that Jimmy Cook told him that Glenn Vines had struck the victim on the head with an axe and that he, Jimmy Cook, had driven Glenn Vines to meet the victim. Jimmy Cook said that he and Vines had been paid by Rees to commit the murder. The only claimed source of his information was Jimmy Cook: he said that neither Vines nor Rees were present when Jimmy Cook told...
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