HOME Secretary Theresa May has been urged to find the “courage” to hold a judicial inquiry into police corruption during the investigation of the murder of private eye Daniel Morgan.

Five separate Met Police investigations have failed to lead to the conviction of those responsible for killing Mr Morgan, who was a partner in a Thornton Heath based agency called Southern Investigations and was found with an axe in his head in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham in 1987.

In March, Acting Met Commissioner Tim Godwin admitted police corruption had thwarted the investigations and apologised to Mr Morgan’s family.

This followed the collapse of the trial of three men accused of murdering 37-year-old Mr Morgan.

The family of Mr Morgan have today sent the Home Secretary a submission for a judicial inquiry into the investigation of his murder.

Mr Morgan’s brother Alistair, 62, from Islington, said: “We consider that the material placed before her cries out for proper public scrutiny of the murder and its handling by the police and the prosecuting authorities over the years.

“We know she will need courage to ensure that there is such scrutiny – courage which we have found to be signally lacking in her predecessors.”

He added: “For almost a quarter of a century, my family has done everything possible to secure justice for Daniel and to expose police corruption.

“For much of this time, we have encountered stubborn obstruction and worse at the highest levels of the Metropolitan Police.

“We have found an impotent police complaints system and met with inertia or worse on the part of successive governments.

“We have been failed utterly by all of the institutions designed to protect us.

“We have seen for ourselves a criminal justice system which has proved incapable of coming to terms with the murder or the subsequent criminality of those charged with enforcing the law.”

Alistair added: “In the midst of what is a tragic mess for my family, we recognise that those responsible for the most recent prosecution, police officers and lawyers alike, have done their utmost to redress the catastrophic failures of earlier investigations.

“Nevertheless, despite their best efforts, the fact remains that there has been no public scrutiny of the evidence available in relation to Daniel’s murder.”

Mr Morgan’s family also want the inquiry to look into claims the Met failed to act in 2003 when it discovered News of the World (NotW) staff were allegedly harassing a detective investigating the murder.

NotW staff were allegedly doing this as a favour to a suspect in the murder case, 56-year-old private eye Jonathan Rees, who worked for the tabloid.