AN INDEPENDENT inquiry into the murder of a private investigator is set to take place more than 26 years after he was killed in a Sydenham pub car park.

Later this month the Home Secretary Theresa May will announce details of the review into the murder of Daniel Morgan.

His family is currently in discussions with the Home Office about the inquiry which is set to be led by a judge.

A Home Office spokesman said: "Discussions are continuing with the family and we hope to make an announcement shortly."

Daniel’s brother Alastair has been constantly campaigning for justice since Daniel was found with an axe embedded in his head in the car park of the Golden Lion pub, Sydenham Road, Sydenham, on March 10, 1987.

Since that day there have been five separate Met Police investigations and all have failed to lead to the conviction of those responsible for killing Daniel, who was a partner in a Thornton Heath based agency called Southern Investigations.

In March 2011 the then acting Met Commissioner Tim Godwin admitted police corruption had thwarted the investigations and apologised.

His apology came after the collapse of an Old Bailey trial of three men accused of killing the 37-year-old.

And last year the Leveson Inquiry heard evidence from former Crimewatch presenter Jacqui Hames who suggested the News of the World placed her under surveillance because of the paper's links to suspects in the Daniel Morgan murder case.

The News of the World placed the couple under surveillance after her husband Detective Chief Superintendent Dave Cook made an appeal on Crimewatch in June 2002 for information about the murder, the inquiry into press standards heard.

Ms Hames alleged Mr Morgan's firm Southern Investigations, whose members included suspects in the killing, had "close links" to senior News of the World news editor Alex Marunchak.