THREE men who were charged with the murder of a private investigator have been awarded a total of £414,000 damages after winning a malicious prosecution action against the Metropolitan Police.

A High Court judge in London ruled on Wednesday that Jonathan Rees and Glenn Vian should each receive £155,000, and Garry Vian should get £104,000.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb announced the sums after Court of Appeal findings in the men's favour relating to malicious prosecution and misfeasance in public office.

The three, who were charged with murder in 2008 following the investigation into an alleged contract killing in a pub car park, originally lost their damages claim in the High Court, but won an appeal last year.

South Wales Argus:

(Left to right: Jonathan Rees, Glenn Vian and Garry Vian. Picture: PA)

They were prosecuted after Daniel Morgan was found murdered in a car park at the Golden Lion in Sydenham, south-east London, in March 1987.

Mr Morgan was struck four or five blows to the head with an axe, which was left embedded in his face.

The men were arrested and charged in April 2008 but, in March 2011, proceedings were discontinued and not guilty verdicts entered.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb's award included a sum to "highlight and condemn the egregious and shameful behaviour of a senior and experienced police officer", Detective Chief Superintendent David Cook, who oversaw the investigation at the relevant time.

She said: "That the case is of public importance can hardly be doubted. In 2013 the home secretary set up an independent panel into the murder of Daniel Morgan.

"The panel has not yet reported but its terms of reference include addressing 'the role played by police corruption in protecting those responsible for the murder from being brought to justice and the failure to confront that corruption'."

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The evidence of a man called Gary Eaton, which was a major plank of the Crown case, had been excluded from the prospective trial because the officer was found to have compromised Mr Eaton's 2006 debriefing.

At the High Court in 2017, Mr Justice Mitting said Mr Cook had done an act "which tended to pervert the course of justice" but his motive was to bring those he believed to be complicit in the murder to justice.

Allowing the men's subsequent appeal from the High Court ruling, Lord Justice McCombe, sitting with two other leading judges, said Mr Cook was undoubtedly a "prosecutor" who acted maliciously.

"He knowingly put before the decision-maker a case which he knew was significantly tainted by his own wrongdoing and which he knew could not be properly presented in that form to a court."

A hearing before Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb was held earlier this year to assess the sums to be awarded following the Court of Appeal judgment.

Announcing her decision, she said the reason a judge at the Old Bailey ruled that Mr Eaton's evidence should be excluded was because Mr Cook "had compromised the integrity of the evidence Eaton proposed to give by initiating or allowing extensive contact with the witness in contravention of express agreements and accepted procedures".

"During this period Eaton's evidence, initially innocuous, expanded appreciably to include presence at the scene of the killing shortly after its commission together with knowledge of the claimants in the vicinity.

"Despite the ruling, at first the Crown indicated that the trial was to proceed on other evidence, but in March 2011 the judge was told that the prosecution was to be discontinued. No evidence was offered and each of the claimants obtained not guilty verdicts."

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said "honest belief in guilt cannot justify prosecuting a suspect on false evidence".

She added: "Although the publicly available decision of the Court of Appeal provides some succour it does not replace the impact of a suitable financial award both to the claimants themselves and on the public perception that there is no place for any form of 'noble-cause' justification for corrupt practices in those trusted to uphold the law."

In a statement released after the case, Daniel’s brother Alastair Morgan said: “The concerns that we have raised over the decades about the police corruption at the heart of Daniel’s murder have remained wholly unaddressed by this litigation: instead, it has been focused simply on the conduct of Detective Superintendent David Cook as the Senior Investigating Officer in charge of the last police investigation into the murder and the ensuing prosecution which collapsed in 2011.

“Over the two decades preceding that investigation and prosecution, my family had done everything democratically and legally possible to expose that police corruption, and to secure justice for Daniel.”

He added: “We were failed utterly by all of the institutions designed to protect us, and we saw for ourselves a criminal justice system which proved incapable of coming to terms with the murder or the subsequent criminality of those charged with enforcing the law.

“In the midst of such a tragic mess, we recognise that David Cook and his team did their utmost to redress the catastrophic failures of earlier investigations.”

Mr Morgan said he believed David Cook had been allowed to become a “scapegoat” in the case and urged the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel under the leadership of Baroness Nuala O’Loan to dig deeper to find the truth.