With Scotland Yard in the dock, now more than ever the public needs to know why the police cannot be trusted to investigate their own corruption.
Untouchables, a five year investigation which the Yard tried to stop, provides the essential context to the phone hacking and other scandals currently engulfing Britain's most powerful police force.
Republished after seven years, it was the first book to question the cosy relationship between the Yard and sections of the media, to explain why cops are incapable of investigating themselves and to expose the lack of independence in the new police watchdog.
From the 1983 Brinks Matt robbery, through the murders of Daniel Morgan, David Norris, Stephen Lawrence, Jill Dando and Damilola Taylor to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, Untouchables reveals the cover ups, double standards and miscarriages of justice during the Yard's phoney war on corruption.
Sunday Times journalist Michael Gillard and Tv producer Laurie Flynn expose how the discredited use of supergrasses in the war on corruption has re-emerged in the new wars on terror and crime, with the same disastrous effects: prosecution misconduct, collapsed trials, huge bills for the taxpayer, victims left without justice and the guilty walking free.
Untouchables is an integrity test on Scotland Yard. It is the result of a six-year investigation into how the most powerful police force in the United Kingdom claims to tackle corruption, racism and mismanagement within its own ranks. In 1993, the Yard set up a secret anti-corruption operation run by undercover cops whose existence was known to only a few senior officers. The Ghost Squad operated for five years ? spying, lying and concealing information ? with no independent oversight. In 1998, its shadowy detectives went public as the Untouchables ? their motto: ?Integrity is Non-Negotiable?. Commissioner Sir John Stevens promised they would bring bent and unethical colleagues to justice. But instead of thorough corruption investigations, there was corruption management. Instead of justice and accountability, there was cover-up. Based on official documents and over 1,000 interviews ? with criminals, supergrasses, police whistleblowers, former anti-corruption officers and judges, many of whom have never spoken out before, let alone on the record ? Untouchables is in the best tradition of hard-hitting expose journalism, naming names and packed with revelations.
It tells the secret history surrounding the Jill Dando case and the key unsolved murders of Daniel Morgan, David Norris, Stephen Lawrence and Rachel Nickell. The authors also expose the buried history of the biggest armed robbery in British criminal history ? the 26 million Brinks Mat gold bullion heist, which is still dogging Scotland Yard on its 21st anniversary. Untouchables presents a timely and well-evidenced case for a fully independent system of policing the police.
