THE family of private investigator Daniel Morgan slammed the Home Office today for stepping in to delay publication of a long-awaited report on his unsolved murder

Mr Morgan was killed with an axe in the car park of the Golden Lion pub in Sydenham, south-east London, on March 10 1987.

Despite five police inquiries and an inquest, no-one has been brought to justice over the father-of-two’s death, with the Metropolitan Police admitting that corruption had hampered the original investigation.

The panel examining the case had been due to publish its report on Monday, before being told by the Home Office that no parliamentary time could be found to allow this.

But this week, the Home Office announced that it wanted to review the document, expected to contain “a sizeable chapter” on police corruption, and would keep parts of it secret if “necessary.”

The family’s lawyer Raju Bhatt told the BBC that Mr Morgan’s relatives have “every reason” to be suspicious about the motives behind the “completely unwarranted intervention.”

He said: “We have to remember that the Home Office itself was complicit in the failings to confront this police corruption all through these decades until the panel was set up.”

Mr Morgan’s brother Alastair said that the family was looking to the panel to defend itself from interference, with relatives calling the delay a “kick in the teeth” which served only to “betray and undermine the very purpose of the panel.”

A Home Office spokesman said that it hoped to publish the report “as soon as possible,” claiming there was “an obligation to make sure the report complies with human rights and national security.”

He added: “This has nothing to do with the independence of the report and the Home Office is not seeking to make edits to it.”