UK: Met Police chief defends force after corruption charges

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LONDON — The head of Britain’s Metropolitan Police said Wednesday she has no intention of resigning after a damning report accused the force of institutional corruption.

Cressida Dick defended the London police force — Britain’s biggest — after an independent report said it concealed or denied its failings over an unsolved 1987 murder to protect its reputation.

No one has been convicted in the murder of private investigator Daniel Morgan, who was attacked with an axe in a car park in southeast London, despite five police investigations and an inquest over the years.

Police admitted in 2011 that the first investigation into the murder was grossly inadequate and hampered by corruption. But the independent report charged Tuesday that corruption had gone on after the initial inquiry and that the force failed to investigate corrupt links between officers and suspects.

Dick said she did not accept that the force was institutionally corrupt, and denied allegations that she was among senior officers who obstructed the independent panel’s investigation.

She has apologized to Morgan’s family, saying it was a “matter of great regret that no-one has been brought to justice and that our mistakes have compounded the pain suffered.”

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