THE family of Hay-on-Wye’s Daniel Morgan – a private investigator found murdered in London in 1987 with an axe embedded in his skull – hope that recent revelations about Metropolitan police tactics in the 1980s will help uncover the truth about his killing.

An investigation into the brutal murder collapsed in 2011 under what Alastair Morgan, Daniel’s brother, called “the weight of corruption”.

However links to the Stephen Lawrence case have seen the Met’s investigation once again come under scrutiny.

Allegations of spying led to Home Secretary Theresa May last week launching a public inquiry into undercover policing, a group refers to as “a firm within a firm”.

Mr Morgan said this week: “We are pleased that the case is at last getting the prominence it deserves.

“There was a whole lot of serious police corruption in the 80s and 90s – police thought they could walk on water.

“Now with inquiries into Stephen Lawrence and Hillsborough, the chickens are coming home to roost.”

And Daniel’s family believe there are strong connections between both the Stephen Lawrence case and their own.

Alastair added: “Those links will be something that the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel will have to look into.”

That panel, established last year, will continue to gather information on both the murder of Daniel Morgan, and the subsequent investigations.

Found dead in a London pub car park, Daniel’s family believe that he was killed because he planned to expose corruption within the Met.

Five men were arrested in 2008, but the case fell apart three years later when evidence was discredited.

The Ellison Report, released last week, revealed a number of findings in relation to the Stephen Lawrence murder investigation that Mrs May called “deeply troubling”.

Within the report Mark Ellison QC said that potentially important evidence from an anti-corruption exercise was shredded, en masse, in 2003.

And Daniel’s family are concerned that within those files, referring to Operation Othona, could have been the key to understanding what happened to him.

Alastair said: “The thing is that we don’t know what it contained.

“But it is almost inconceivable that there was nothing about Daniel in those files.”