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Hearing: 11th September 2009, day 62
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PUBLIC INQUIRY INTO THE DEATH OF
ROBERT HAMILL
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Held at:
Interpoint
20-24 York Street
Belfast
on Friday, 11th September 2009
commencing at 10.00 am
Day 62
1 Friday, 11th September 2009
2 (10.00 am)
3 MR UNDERWOOD: Good morning. May I have Mr McCrum, please.
4 MR ALAN GEORGE McCRUM (sworn)
5 Questions from MR UNDERWOOD
6 MR UNDERWOOD: Morning, Mr McCrum.
7 A. Good morning.
8 Q. My name is Underwood and I am Counsel to the Inquiry.
9 I have a number of questions for you and it may well be
10 there are some supplemental questions after that from
11 others here.
12 Can I ask you your full names first?
13 A. Alan George McCrum.
14 Q. Let's identify your witness statement, which we can put
15 up on screen at page [80878]. If you just keep your
16 eyes on this while we scroll through it briefly, please,
17 is that your witness statement?
18 A. It is, yes.
19 Q. Are its contents true?
20 A. They are.
21 Q. Thank you. We know from the statement in general that
22 you had responsibility for a number of police stations
23 that night. Can you give us a picture of the duties of
24 an inspector in that division at that time?
25 A. I had responsibility for what we would have called
1
1 N3 subdivisions, Lurgan subdivision, Portadown
2 subdivision and Banbridge subdivision. The fact that
3 I was stationed in Portadown didn't take away from the
4 fact that I had the same level of responsibility for
5 both Lurgan and Banbridge as I had in Portadown.
6 There would have been a sergeant in Lurgan, one in
7 Banbridge and one in Portadown station, and they would
8 have been the immediate supervisors of the officers on
9 duty. My responsibility would have been the oversight
10 of the three sergeants and the officers who would work
11 to the sergeants.
12 Q. In practical terms, on any one shift would you have
13 expected ordinarily to be, as it were, running around
14 between each station?
15 A. Yes. It would have been my custom and practice to
16 ensure that I was visible and I would have been in all
17 three areas during the course of a night duty.
18 Q. This presumably was not the first Saturday night you had
19 been on duty in the area?
20 A. No. I had arrived in Portadown I think it was September
21 the previous year and obviously had done a number of
22 weekend night duties over the intervening number of
23 months.
24 Q. Had you had experience of actually physically attending
25 yourself any disturbances in the town centre?
2
1 A. I can't recall specifically, but I can -- in terms of
2 the time-line, but I know in my time in Portadown
3 I attended quite a number of disturbances. It was at
4 a very difficult time with the Drumcree scenario in the
5 background and there was much public disquiet and public
6 disorder around that time.
7 Q. So it would not have been unusual, even though you were
8 in charge of this area, for you physically to have to
9 get out on the street yourself?
10 A. No, it wouldn't have been unusual.
11 Q. An odd question perhaps, but let me try this one on you.
12 We have some reason to believe that the MSU that
13 eventually was called into the centre of Portadown that
14 night was stationed outside the Coach Inn on a Saturday
15 night. How does that chime with you?
16 A. Yes, that would have been the case. It would have been
17 fairly normal then, in the late 1990s, for an MSU to
18 have responsibility for the Coach Inn nightclub and the
19 hundreds of people that would have been coming onto the
20 streets at the end of the nightclub.
21 Q. So the concern, if concern is the fair word then, is
22 that there might actually have been some disorder
23 outside the Coach. Would that be fair?
24 A. Yes, that's reasonable, yes.
25 Q. Again, looking at your overall responsibility, you say
3
1 you had a sergeant who was responsible for supervising
2 the men at each police station. In practical terms
3 then, what was required of you?
4 A. Well, my role would have been oversight and a reference
5 point for the sergeants if they had concerns or issues
6 that they wanted to check out that they were doing the
7 right thing in the right way, and I suppose overall
8 quality control across the three subdivisions of the
9 policing actions and activities.
10 Q. Presumably you are talking here of the responses of the
11 sergeants to events happening on their shift at any
12 given time, are you?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Again, in practical terms, how does that work out in
15 terms of quality control? Say you are at Portadown and
16 in Banbridge there is a riot and sergeants try to cope
17 with it, where do you come in?
18 A. What in practical terms would happen in those
19 circumstances is that the communications room in
20 Banbridge would probably ring the communications room in
21 Portadown, who then in turn would advise me that there
22 was an issue that required my attention in Banbridge.
23 So that's -- it was custom and practice really that if
24 officers picked up there was a significant issue
25 occurring, then the duty inspector would be made aware
4
1 of that.
2 Q. So that's the key, is it, significant issue --
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. -- which may be a riot or it may be a serious burglary
5 or something like that perhaps?
6 A. It could be any number of things obviously, but again,
7 officers would have had sufficient experience in the
8 communications rooms to identify something that was of
9 cause for concern that they felt the inspector should at
10 the very least have knowledge of.
11 Q. So if the events we are talking about, which, in fact,
12 happened in Portadown, had, in fact, happened at one of
13 the other stations under your charge, you would have
14 been alerted to that anyway, would you?
15 A. Yes, I should have been.
16 Q. Again, in practical terms let's imagine that at 1.50 on
17 a Sunday morning you are at Portadown, but you are told
18 there is a serious affray going on, or however you want
19 to describe it, in Banbridge. Would you have expected
20 to go over there?
21 A. I would have, yes.
22 Q. Subject to that, the sergeant was in charge. Is that
23 fair?
24 A. That is fair, yes.
25 Q. In your statement at paragraph 4, which we can see at
5
1 page [80878], going over to [80879], in fact, if we can
2 both on screen, you there deal with being alerted to
3 what was going on.
4 Picking up the last sentence on [80878], you say:
5 "I always treated such incidents as a critical
6 priority, so I directed immediately that all available
7 back up be sent to the area. There were, however, only
8 about six officers available in Portadown that night."
9 I just want to clarify what you mean by "available"
10 there. Do you mean physically in town, on foot, or they
11 are encompassing the available back-up?
12 A. No, what I meant there was the six -- in fact, I think
13 it was perhaps seven officers who were part of the
14 section or relief shift that were on duty. There was
15 obviously the additional four officers who were in the
16 Land Rover, but I had seven officers who were in my
17 section shift who I knew were on duty in three mobile
18 crews.
19 Q. The likes of Mr Warnock, Mr Orr, Mr Silcock?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. We know, of course, from evidence we have heard
22 otherwise, and from your own statement, that this was
23 a notorious flash point area. Help us on this. We have
24 been told several times that it was unusual for people
25 from St Patrick's Hall to walk up through the junction,
6
1 because they were all frightened that it would be
2 a flash point, and it was only exceptionally that there
3 were not taxis available and it forced people to walk up
4 here. We have also been told as part of that narrative
5 that it was a notorious flash point at which there would
6 be attacks. Those seem to be a bit irreconcilable.
7 Can you help us with whether there were groups of
8 people that would walk up from St Patrick's Hall across
9 that junction?
10 A. I don't know how regular it was, but I know that people
11 would have taken the risk. They would have probably
12 recognised there was a level of risk in making the walk
13 from St Patrick's Hall across in Market Street and down
14 into Woodhouse Street, but perhaps they didn't want to
15 pay for a taxi or perhaps there was no taxi available
16 and therefore they felt, "It is only going to take
17 five minutes to do it and we will quickly do it and
18 we'll get by and there will be no issue for us".
19 So I think that's probably how it would have worked
20 out for most people.
21 Q. When you say "take the risk", let's deal with this
22 squarely. You are not therefore suggesting that
23 Catholics would deliberately walk up there to be
24 provocative?
25 A. No, not at all. Not at all.
7
1 Q. So if and insofar as there were fights or attacks, this
2 would be Protestants on those Catholics who were taking
3 the risk of going up?
4 A. Yes, that would be fair.
5 Q. In that context, were the officers who were available to
6 you on that Saturday night on 27th April 1997
7 a sufficient number?
8 A. Well, at the time -- and we have the benefit of
9 hindsight clearly now -- I felt that they were of
10 a sufficient number. The very fact that we had four
11 additional officers whose sole purpose was to seek to
12 try to manage interface disorder was for me, ordinarily,
13 in ordinary circumstances, enough.
14 One could always contend that you have never enough,
15 because you don't know what circumstances you are going
16 to have to try to manage, but ordinarily, I felt that
17 was probably appropriate in the circumstances.
18 Q. Had there ever been, in your time there, an incident
19 where there had been an outbreak of violence there where
20 that sort of number of officers had been inadequate to
21 the task?
22 A. The context of Portadown in the late 1990s was a very
23 challenging one, largely because of the shadow of
24 Drumcree, and there were circumstances during that time
25 where that number of officers would not have been
8
1 sufficient to deal with the level of disorder that
2 occurred.
3 The difficulty for policing was so much of this was
4 fairly spontaneous, and it wasn't possible clearly to
5 have a large level of resourcing available 24/7.
6 Q. Okay. Help us on that point with the expectation of the
7 Land Rover crew. We have heard that it was common
8 practice to station a Land Rover at least in the centre,
9 if not necessarily the precise place that the
10 Land Rover, in fact, was on the night.
11 You would accept that, would you?
12 A. Yes, I would, yes.
13 Q. What was expectation of a crew if violence was either on
14 the verge of erupting or was erupting? Would the
15 expectation be that the crew would get out or call for
16 back-up or drive around and try to get into the middle
17 or what?
18 A. I think it is very much dependent on the particular
19 circumstances that they find themselves in. It is
20 difficult to give you an absolute black and white
21 response to that question. There would be certain
22 circumstances yes, absolutely my expectation would be
23 that officers should get out of a Land Rover and seek to
24 protect people. There are other circumstances where
25 that might be a little more difficult because of the
9
1 large numbers that would be involved.
2 If that was the case, an immediate call for back-up
3 would be required. It is difficult for me to comment
4 definitively, because clearly I wasn't part of that.
5 I can only give my own broad assessment.
6 Q. Okay. We still have on screen, amongst other parts of
7 your statement, the first page, [80878]. Paragraph 4 is
8 highlighted still. You say:
9 "Referring to my notebook entry on 27 April 1997,
10 I see that at approximately 1.51 am I was informed by
11 Constable Godly ... that there was a disorder taking
12 place in the Market Street area ..."
13 We gather that Mr Godly first became aware of the
14 incident at 1.45 or so. We have heard some evidence
15 about the layout of the station. Can you help me about
16 physically where you were and where Mr Godly was?
17 A. I was almost the next floor up. The communications
18 room, you had to go up a number of stairs to get into my
19 office. Obviously there was a door into the
20 communications room and there was a door into my office.
21 So it wasn't possible for me to hear what was going on
22 in the communications room from where I was in the
23 office.
24 From recollection, Constable Godly rang me in the
25 office to advise me of the disorder taking place, and,
10
1 as a consequence, I immediately went down to the
2 communications room to speak to him personally.
3 Q. We know by the time that happened, 1.51, he had sought
4 ambulances. Do we gather from your evidence that you
5 were not informed of that? Again, if you can't
6 remember, just say so.
7 A. I really can't remember. What I can remember is that he
8 made reference to one of the officers in the Land Rover
9 using the phrase, "They're killing each other", or words
10 to that effect, and that has a resonance with me.
11 Q. Did that not alert you of the need to call for back-ups,
12 MSU, etc, at that stage?
13 A. With the benefit of hindsight, you know, perhaps I could
14 have called for back-up, but I knew back-up was at
15 Banbridge, if that's what we are talking about in terms
16 of back-up.
17 At that stage, sometimes people make assessments
18 which, you know, aren't perhaps the most exact
19 assessments in relation to the level of disorder. There
20 are some officers that deal with disorder and conflict
21 in a more mature way than others. So I wanted to see
22 for myself just the extent of the challenge.
23 Q. Okay. What would you have expected the journey time
24 from Banbridge to Portadown to have been for a police
25 car at that time of night?
11
1 A. Probably 15 to 20 minutes. Possibly a little longer,
2 because the officers may well have been involved in
3 managing disorder in Banbridge and it may not have been
4 possible just to have left all of that instantly.
5 Q. Assuming that were ready to travel, 15 to 20 minutes?
6 A. Assuming, best case scenario, 15 to 20 minutes.
7 Q. You tell us in your statement you found Sergeant P89
8 and then you two went off.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Sergeant P89 has said that, in fact, it was
11 Constable Godly who told him about the incident. It may
12 not be a serious discrepancy. Can you help us about
13 that?
14 A. He may well have done. All I can say from my own
15 evidence is I physically sought out Sergeant P89 to
16 come with me down Edward Street to the scene.
17 Q. In your paragraph 5 which is on your page [80879] there
18 you tell us that you and the sergeant walked quickly
19 from the station down to the scene about 300 metres away
20 in Market Street.
21 "I was aware that we had limited resources and that
22 there was an issue of officer safety, so it was
23 important that I saw for myself the situation to lead
24 the response. As we were leaving the station, Reserve
25 Constable Silcock and Reserve Constable Warnock told
12
1 Sergeant P89 that there was serious disorder in the town
2 centre. I did not know exactly what we were facing, but
3 experience told us to issue a federal riot gun as
4 a precautionary measure. The sergeant was the one who
5 actually dealt with that. I think Reserve Constable
6 Warnock signed out the gun and then followed us to
7 return to the scene."
8 Just again dealing with the practicalities of that,
9 you are on your way there to this scene. Officers are
10 coming down in a car. There is a discussion about
11 a riot gun and the sergeant deals with that.
12 Was that just a matter of moments, or did the
13 sergeant have to sign a form or something?
14 A. No. It would have been an oral authorisation.
15 Q. So this is pretty much on the hoof, is it?
16 A. Pretty much on hoof.
17 Q. At paragraph 6 you tell us an ambulance drove past you
18 as you continued towards the scene.
19 Now, there may be some importance to timings here
20 and that's why I am asking you some questions to help us
21 on this, because we know when the ambulance got there.
22 We also have evidence from Reserve Constable Burrows
23 that he let the ambulance past at the barriers before
24 you came out. Are you clear that you recall it going
25 past you?
13
1 A. I'm fairly sure. I can't be 100% definitive, but I'm
2 fairly sure that the ambulance went past -- an ambulance
3 went past.
4 Q. Forgive me a moment. If we look at page [09958], this
5 is the signing out of the weapons log at 0015. Does
6 this help you with the particular gun that was being
7 signed out that we are talking about? Can we look at
8 the one at the bottom in particular, "27.4.97. 0200"?
9 A. Yes. The one at the bottom would refer to what would
10 have been known then as an FRG, federal riot gun. So
11 that would appear to be the signing out of that.
12 Q. If we can over the page we might see more information
13 about that. [09959]. Signed out to Mr Warnock. Is
14 that correct?
15 A. That's correct.
16 Q. How would that work, the signing out process? We see it
17 is issued to Mr Warnock. Would someone have to sign it
18 off? Obviously this is a HOLMES form and there would be
19 an original form underlying this somewhere.
20 A. My recollection of the way it was in 1997 was that it
21 would have to be signed out by someone who was trained
22 to use the weapon and authorisation would have to be
23 sought from a sergeant or inspector for the weapon to be
24 signed out in the first instance.
25 Q. That's what I am getting at. So there is Mr Warnock
14
1 turning up at the police station saying, "I'd like
2 a riot gun, please". Neither a sergeant nor
3 an inspector is in the police station at that stage if
4 their timing is right here. How did it work?
5 A. Well, it worked from my recollection, in that, as I was
6 leaving the police station with Sergeant Warnock --
7 sorry -- Sergeant P89, Reserve Constable Warnock
8 arrived in a car, from memory, and there was
9 a conversation, a very quick conversation between
10 Reserve Constable Warnock and Sergeant P89 which
11 related to, "Would it be a good idea to get a riot gun
12 in these circumstances?" and Sergeant P89 authorised
13 that.
14 Q. But would he have had to nip back into the police
15 station? That is what I am getting at.
16 A. Who, Reserve Constable Warnock?
17 Q. No. Sergeant P89.
18 A. No.
19 Q. So Reserve Constable Warnock would be able to go in and
20 say, "Look, the sergeant is outside. He has authorised
21 to get a gun. Give it quick"?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. We are just trying to get timings here. You are aware,
24 of course, of what we call the Kennedy report in which
25 some questions were raised.
15
1 If we look at page [10155], in the fourth
2 paragraph starting:
3 "The senior supervising officer at the initial
4 assault scene of Mr Hamill and D was Inspector McCrum.
5 The assault occurred at 1.50 am and enquiries have
6 established that Inspector McCrum accompanied by
7 ex-Sergeant [blank] arrived at the scene some time after
8 2.10 am."
9 We are not clear presently what enquiries those
10 were, but on that analysis it takes you until 2.10 to
11 get there. Would you accept that?
12 A. No, I wouldn't accept that. I know whenever I arrived
13 at the scene there was an ambulance there and someone
14 was being put into the back of the ambulance. I am
15 fairly confident, very confident, that that was before
16 2.10 in the morning.
17 Q. Yes. Well, again, while we are in this report, if we
18 look at page [10141], halfway down there is
19 a paragraph starting:
20 "Inspector McCrum outlined how he had been made
21 aware that disorder had broken out in the town centre
22 and had made his way along with Sergeant [blank] to
23 Market Street. He was informed by Constable Cooke that
24 two males had been assaulted by a group of Protestant
25 youths and had subsequently been taken by ambulance to
16
1 Craigavon Hospital. When he arrived, this group of
2 youths were still on the street ..."
3 What that report says, rightly or wrongly, was that
4 you were telling that investigative team that, by the
5 time you arrived, in fact, the ambulance had gone. Can
6 you comment on that for us, please?
7 A. No, I never expressed that view. I am absolutely clear
8 that whenever I arrived at the scene, someone was being
9 put into the back of an ambulance, because that's
10 a memory that's very clear to me.
11 Q. Well, let me test that further. If we look at
12 page [09960], this is a copy of your notebook entry for
13 that day. If we pick up the first half:
14 "Reported for duty. Checked occurrence book,
15 briefing book and occurrence sheets. At 1.51 am
16 informed by comms officer, Con Godly, that there was
17 opposing factions fighting in Market Street, and police
18 in attendance were in immediate need of assistance.
19 Ensured all subdivisional resources were deployed to
20 Market Street area, went directly to scene with
21 sergeant. On arrival at scene briefed by Con Cooke. It
22 would appear that two males had been assaulted by
23 a group of Protestant youths and had, as a result, been
24 taken by ambulance to CAH."
25 Now that's consistent, of course, with what the
17
1 Kennedy report says and it may well have got it from
2 that. Can you comment on that for us?
3 A. Whenever I am using that language, "It would appear that
4 two males had been assaulted by a group of Protestant
5 youths and had, as a result, been taken by ambulance to
6 Craigavon Hospital", I am simply trying to reflect what
7 Constable Cooke had told me in relation to the
8 background.
9 I clearly haven't said in my notebook entry that the
10 ambulance was still there, but at the time obviously
11 I did not consider it to be particularly pertinent or
12 relevant, but I can say clearly that, whenever I was at
13 the scene, I can recall someone being put into the back
14 of the ambulance, the ambulance doors closing and the
15 ambulance driving away.
16 Q. So you were, in fact, briefed by Constable Cooke, I take
17 it?
18 A. Yes, I was.
19 Q. We know from your statement that you saw a group of 30
20 or 40 youths you took to be Protestants the worse for
21 drink?
22 A. Yes. Absolutely.
23 Q. But no fighting -- is that fair -- at that stage?
24 A. No fighting at that stage. That's correct.
25 Q. To summarise your statement on this, I hope fairly, your
18
1 concern was that there could be more fighting and/or
2 there could be an attack on your officers?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. What you wanted to do was get those people up somewhere
5 safer?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Did you recognise -- I am so sorry.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: If finish that point, then I can ask my
9 question.
10 MR UNDERWOOD: Certainly. Did you recognise any of the
11 youths?
12 A. No, none of them.
13 Q. That is my point finished on that.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Can I just go back to the issue of the gun?
15 You say the sergeant told Warnock he could have one,
16 then Warnock went to the police station and got it. How
17 would Warnock get it at the police station?
18 A. He would have got it, sir, just by getting the keys of
19 the armoury and going in and getting it himself.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Where would the key be kept or who would have
21 it?
22 A. From memory, sir, it would have been kept by the station
23 duty officer, who would have been the officer in the
24 inquiry office. He would have held on to the keys.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: So that was another officer who was there?
19
1 A. Yes.
2 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
3 MR UNDERWOOD: If we go to paragraph 9 of your statement at
4 page [80880], you say:
5 "The officers were engaged in trying to quell
6 a difficult situation. I also noticed a small group of
7 three or four people who appeared to be hanging around
8 further into the mouth of Woodhouse Street. I can
9 recall one man in particular who was bare-chested and
10 seemed to be very drunk. I remember thinking to myself
11 that must have been the other faction that had been
12 mentioned in the first report of the incident."
13 Do we take it from that you assumed those were
14 Catholics?
15 A. The people who were in the mouth of Woodhouse Street?
16 Q. Yes.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. You didn't make a note of the bare-chested man. Is
19 there a reason for that?
20 A. Probably because I didn't think at that point, at that
21 time, I didn't think it was of particular relevance.
22 For me this was, at that stage, simply another Saturday
23 night disorder situation in Portadown.
24 Q. Do I take it from that that you made your notes before
25 you discovered that this was a serious assault?
20
1 A. I made my notes in my journal before I finished the tour
2 of duty. So I would have obviously, at 4 o'clock in the
3 morning when I rang the hospital, have been made aware
4 it was a serious assault, but at that point, the fact
5 that I had observed someone who was bare-chested and
6 drunk really wasn't going to, I felt, help in terms of
7 identification.
8 Q. What were the officers doing in trying to quell this
9 difficult situation?
10 A. Well, whenever I arrived, it was fairly chaotic. There
11 was people randomly, some sitting, some standing, some
12 aggressive, obviously quite a number drunk, and my
13 concern was we already appeared to have had one
14 sectarian assault, and what I wanted to try to prevent
15 was another group arriving perhaps from Woodhouse Street
16 to engage with the Loyalists in that area.
17 So what I wanted to try to do was then get some
18 control and ask the officers to make a line and to try
19 to then move them away from the area.
20 Q. What were the officers doing? You have 30 or 40 people,
21 some of whom would sitting around, some of whom were
22 dancing and chanting and so on. You have a small group
23 in Woodhouse Street. Were the officers keeping
24 themselves between the groups? Were they trying to get
25 people away?
21
1 A. It was a very dynamic situation. It wasn't in any way
2 static. Some officers were speaking to some
3 individuals, I don't know about what. Other officers
4 were obviously trying to seek to control and bring
5 a level of influence over others who, on the face of it,
6 seemed more aggressive, but it was a very dynamic,
7 fast-moving situation which clearly had the potential to
8 get out of control quite quickly.
9 Q. Going to paragraph 15 of your statement, [80881], you
10 say:
11 "When I finished briefing the Mobile Support Unit
12 I directed the sergeant to go to the Craigavon Area
13 Hospital to make enquiries about the injured people. In
14 1997 that type of sectarian disorder was a regular
15 feature of Friday and Saturday nights in Portadown,
16 especially in the lead up to the marching season.
17 Policing in Portadown was extraordinarily difficult at
18 the time. I needed to know if the incident fitted into
19 that category or was more serious and this would allow
20 me to determine what follow-up action was needed."
21 Now, we know that at least two of the officers had
22 had cause to go over to Mr Hamill when he was on the
23 ground and had taken the view he was actually very
24 seriously injured. How did that information not get to
25 you on the scene?
22
1 A. I spoke to quite a number of the officers during the
2 course of moving the Loyalist group up the town centre,
3 and, during the course of that, sought to try to get
4 a better understanding of what had happened. The focus
5 in terms of the feedback that was given to me was
6 around, you know, a sectarian conflict situation.
7 Q. Uh-huh.
8 A. At no stage did any officer raise with me that anyone
9 was seriously injured. It simply wasn't brought to my
10 attention, either proactively by the officers or as
11 a consequence of me seeking to try to understand exactly
12 what had happened.
13 Q. I fully understand your primary concern was to defuse
14 the situation you had, but, as you tell us, when you got
15 there, you saw people being put into the back of
16 an ambulance. You had got Constable Cooke telling you
17 what, broadly speaking, had happened. Didn't it occur
18 to you there was every possibility this might be
19 a serious assault?
20 A. Well, clearly that was a possibility. At that point,
21 though, it was secondary, because I was concerned about
22 the dynamic public disorder situation that I was still
23 trying to manage, and during the course of trying to
24 manage that, I was seeking to try to find out more about
25 the extent of the assault, but, as I've said, none of
23
1 the officers conveyed to me that they had seen anything
2 that would indicate it was particularly serious at that
3 time.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: You told us that you had thought it was
5 simply another Saturday night disorder. How often would
6 you get an ambulance turning out and taking someone away
7 in an ordinary Saturday night disorder?
8 A. Sadly, sir, pretty regularly in Portadown at that time.
9 There was a large number of -- I think probably again I
10 go back to the Drumcree context, but that had created
11 a context where there was a lot of community tension.
12 Almost on a nightly basis, you would have had young
13 groups of Nationalists and young groups of Loyalists
14 seeking to try to involve themselves in confrontation
15 and you would get quite serious assaults and ambulances
16 would be called. So it wasn't -- sadly, it wasn't
17 an infrequent occurrence.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
19 MR UNDERWOOD: But you draw a distinction between that, do
20 you, and the sort of clash you were talking about here
21 earlier, where some Catholics had taken the risk of
22 coming up from St Patrick's Hall?
23 A. Well, I can only give, sir, my assessment on the basis
24 of my professional policing experience in Portadown at
25 that time, which would have been some people would have
24
1 decided, you know, rather than wait for a taxi, "We will
2 just try to get on home now. We are only ten minutes
3 away from home, so we will be all right", type of
4 approach.
5 Q. The short point is that it was not uncommon on
6 a Saturday night for the flash point to end up with
7 ambulances being called?
8 A. No. I think the other point I would make is there was
9 more than one flash point, you know. There was the
10 flash point in the town centre, but there were other
11 flash points in Corcrain and in Charles Street and
12 Oban Street and McGowan Buildings car park. There was
13 a number of flash points. It wasn't just the locus was
14 the town centre.
15 Q. If I can take you to paragraph 18 of your statement,
16 [80882], and the part which I want to go to is on
17 page [80883]. Picking this up four lines from the top
18 roughly in the middle of the line you say:
19 "I remember speaking to Alan Neill around what had
20 taken place. I can't remember exactly at what point
21 that was and he said to me, again from memory, that they
22 had done their best to try and pull some of those people
23 back from attacking some of the other people that were
24 obviously being assaulted."
25 Doing the very best you can with your memory of
25
1 that, was he telling you they had attempted to pull
2 people off who were kicking, or was this just more
3 general pulling people off and pulling them back?
4 A. From memory, it was more general. Certainly I have no
5 recollection of him using the word "kicking". Just
6 pulling them back. Again, that was a very generic term.
7 Q. Okay. In that you go on further. Let's pick it up four
8 lines from the bottom:
9 "But it was general information. If specific
10 information had been relayed to me, then I would have
11 been thinking about scene preservation at an earlier
12 stage. My focus had been on the preservation of life
13 and prevention of a recurrence of disorder."
14 So there you were. Your primary focus is on
15 defusing it. You have, at least in the back of your
16 mind, the prospect this might be a serious assault, so
17 might turn out to be an investigation. You are in
18 a transitionary stage, aren't you, between what might be
19 a serious crime and the investigation of what might be
20 a serious crime, and obviously, at some point, if you
21 are thinking that, it is crossing your mind about scene
22 preservation. Is that fair?
23 A. Yes. I think, probably -- it wasn't prominent in my
24 thinking at that time, but it was at the back of my mind
25 certainly.
26
1 Q. Do I understand your evidence this way: that there were
2 so many scraps in so many parts of Portadown at that
3 sort of time that, without more, you wouldn't be seeking
4 to preserve each area where the scrap had occurred as
5 a scene of a crime?
6 A. I think that's absolutely fair. Given the amount of
7 disorder in Portadown at that time, it just wouldn't
8 have been practically possible for me, on a Saturday
9 night, to start securing scenes, because inside the
10 first hour of duty I would have had no officers left,
11 because they would have been holding scenes.
12 So that was, again, just the position I found myself
13 in.
14 Q. Let's talk about scene contamination. No vehicles could
15 get through, could they?
16 A. No.
17 Q. Police were left at the scene anyway, were they not?
18 A. They were, yes.
19 Q. We will come back in a moment to the timing of your
20 leaving, but once you had gone, disorder had finished.
21 Is that right?
22 A. That's right.
23 Q. Would you have expected much pedestrian traffic through
24 the centre after that?
25 A. No. On my experience, once we get to, you know,
27
1 3 o'clock in the morning, most -- the night clubs in
2 Northern Ireland then would have been closing up at
3 1 o'clock in the morning. So, you know, by the time
4 someone would have went to the local chippie and got
5 a fish supper, and it would have been maybe 2.00, 2.15.
6 After that, Portadown would have been very, very quiet.
7 Q. If we go to paragraph 19, please, at page [80883], you
8 say:
9 "I did not give any specific instructions to the
10 Land Rover crew before I left the scene. They were due
11 to conclude their period of duty, so it was for the
12 sergeant, their front-line supervisor, to debrief them
13 at the termination of their duties. I am sure, however,
14 that before I left the scene I told every officer to
15 make a contemporaneous note of what had happened.
16 I would have done that as a matter of routine."
17 I want to test that. Surely you didn't have the
18 chance to talk to every officer, did you?
19 A. I hesitate over "every officer". I know it would be my
20 custom and practice to be quite -- knowing the
21 importance of notebook entries, to say to people -- it
22 is just a standard thing for me, "Make sure you have
23 your notebook finished at the end of your tour of duty".
24 Whether it was every officer, I can't stand over that
25 completely.
28
1 Q. The problem we have is none of them made a note
2 contemporaneously. What I want to suggest is that, yes,
3 no doubt it would have been a matter of routine for you,
4 but for whatever reason on that night, you didn't get
5 a chance to say that?
6 A. Again I can't -- I know it would have been my absolute
7 custom and practice to do that. I am fairly confident
8 I did do it, but I can't stand over and it and say,
9 because I can't recall exactly saying it to them.
10 Q. Would it surprise you if you told eight or ten officers
11 to make notebook entries and none of them would do it?
12 A. I would be disappointed.
13 Q. Surprised?
14 A. Surprised? Yes, a little surprised. I would have
15 expected more.
16 Q. So far as the sergeant was concerned, what would you
17 have expected him to do by way of debriefing them?
18 A. Well, my expectation was the sergeant would have spoken
19 to the officers at the conclusion of their tour of duty,
20 reaffirmed the need for notebooks to have been updated,
21 reaffirmed if there was anything that needed to be
22 signed off in the occurrence book, and, if there was any
23 outstanding documentation, given that batons had been
24 drawn, for baton reports to have been concluded.
25 Really, administrative aspects to the final debrief
29
1 before they finished duty.
2 Q. Just concentrating on notebooks for a moment, would this
3 be fair: that you would have expected every sergeant in
4 charge of a police station to ensure that anybody going
5 off shift had got his notebook up to date?
6 A. Yes. That was always my view of -- that was part of the
7 sergeant role as the front line supervisor, to make sure
8 that those matters were attended to.
9 Q. Okay. At paragraph 20 you say -- we know, of course,
10 you had gone off for other duties:
11 "When I returned to Portadown Police Station at
12 about 4 o'clock after carrying out my other supervisory
13 duties in the other two subdivisions, I was advised by
14 the sergeant who updated me on his visit to the
15 hospital. He told me that he had attended hospital
16 and met members of the Hamill family and other people
17 who had been much less than courteous to him. He said
18 he had been unable to find out about the injured men's
19 medical condition."
20 What do you think of that?
21 A. In what sense, what do I think of that?
22 Q. What use is that?
23 A. To me?
24 Q. To anybody?
25 A. Well, of very limited use, to put it mildly, and as
30
1 a consequence of that, then I rang the hospital.
2 Q. It is hopeless, isn't it, for a sergeant to be sent to
3 a hospital to find out about a man's medical condition
4 and to be so affronted that somebody is rude to him he
5 doesn't bother do continuing?
6 A. The only thing I can say is the way it was conveyed to
7 me was that people had been very abusive towards him.
8 I think he was erring on the side of caution and, rather
9 than exacerbate the situation and make it worse by
10 challenging the behaviour in a hospital, he felt it more
11 appropriate in the circumstances simply to withdraw.
12 That is how I would assess why he behaved in the way he
13 did.
14 Q. That's helpful. Thank you. You go on to say:
15 "I see that I then rang ... and spoke to the Senior
16 House Officer or consultant."
17 You put a quote:
18 "On return to Portadown made enquiries with CAH
19 reference the extent of injuries to the two males who
20 had been previously been assaulted. Informed by doctor
21 in the ICU that one of the two, Hamill, had sustained
22 serious head injury which may be life-threatening and he
23 was to be transferred to the Neurological Department at
24 RVH."
25 You go on to say that's probably as a result of you
31
1 asking that specific question.
2 Can you recall discussing that or anything else that
3 was going on with the sergeant?
4 A. No. From memory, the sergeant -- there had been a road
5 traffic accident which involved a drunk driver. From
6 memory, the sergeant then was pretty much out of
7 commission for the next couple of hours dealing with the
8 drunk driver and going through the various procedures
9 with the drunk driver.
10 Q. We know that it took until about 7.27 for the scene log
11 to be opened, so for there to be a proper sealing off of
12 the scene. Can you explain why it took that amount of
13 time?
14 A. Well, first of all, I called the on-call detective in to
15 work through with him the next steps. I then -- not in
16 any particular order, but I am just trying to fill in,
17 if that helps.
18 Q. Certainly.
19 A. I then -- I asked all officers to ensure that they had
20 their statements for the detectives -- for detective --
21 D/Con Keys.
22 I asked Constable Cooke, who I knew had the best
23 local knowledge of Portadown, to draw up a list of those
24 who had been at the scene just to try to help the
25 investigator when he arrived in. Whenever the detective
32
1 came in, we discussed the scene and I suggested that
2 Constable Cooke would go with him to the scene to try to
3 identify exactly where the scene was, because, up to
4 that point, no-one knew precisely -- certainly I didn't
5 know precisely where the scene was
6 Q. So Constable Cooke was fairly pivotal, in your view, was
7 he?
8 A. Constable Cooke would have been, for me, the most
9 reliable -- would have been the officer who had the best
10 local knowledge, and, therefore, I was leaning on him as
11 an officer who had the best local knowledge.
12 Q. Again, because obviously the Panel has heard almost all
13 of these officers give evidence, and they are going to
14 have to form views about them in all sorts of ways, it
15 would be helpful to get your impression, and I don't
16 mean critically, on any of these officers.
17 You chose to be briefed by Constable Cooke, did you,
18 or did he advance himself to brief you when you got
19 there?
20 A. I think just the way it worked out whenever I arrived
21 down at the bottom of Edward Street, he happened to be
22 the most available of the officers.
23 Q. Okay.
24 A. Therefore, I had that conversation with him.
25 Q. But he had the best local knowledge, as far as you were
33
1 concerned --
2 A. Yes, he did.
3 Q. -- as well, and you chose him to go back with the
4 detective to the scene?
5 A. Yes, I did.
6 Q. Again because you trusted him as a particularly reliable
7 officer. Is that the fact?
8 A. I think Detective Constable Keys -- Gordon Cooke may
9 have been in the communications room at that stage, at
10 that point in time. I can't remember exactly what the
11 motivation was for Gordon Cooke going, whether it was
12 just out of convenience or he happened to be there.
13 I really just can't recall.
14 Q. I think you are aware now that Mr Cooke denies that he
15 was given instructions by you, in particular given an
16 instruction to draw up the list of persons identified at
17 the scene. Are you aware that he says that?
18 A. I am now. All I can say is I am satisfied that I gave
19 him that instruction and, in fact, remember him in the
20 communications room writing stuff down.
21 Now, I presumed that that was the list that I had
22 talked about, but as it transpired, I think it may have
23 been his statement he was trying to write up at that
24 stage, which I think included within that the people
25 that he was able to identify at the scene.
34
1 Q. Then at paragraph 23 of your statement, [80884], you
2 say:
3 "I then directed Constable Cooke and Constable Orr
4 to go to Craigavon Hospital to get the clothing of the
5 injured men for forensic examination."
6 Again, I think you are aware now that he denies
7 that, that is Constable Cooke. Are you aware of that?
8 A. I am, yes.
9 Q. Can you comment on that?
10 A. Well, all I can say is, you know, I made a journal entry
11 at the time within a couple of hours of that happening.
12 I know I made that request. Whether I was
13 misunderstood, whether I was misheard, I don't know.
14 All I can say, in terms of my own evidence, is
15 I made that request to get the clothing, because, again,
16 for me, this was about trying to ensure we get as much
17 information/evidence as quickly as possible to help the
18 detectives track down who was responsible, and the
19 actions that I took after 4 o'clock in the morning, in
20 terms of getting the people back in from -- the officers
21 who had finished duty at 3 o'clock in the morning, was
22 all about trying to ensure there was nothing lost in
23 terms of the investigation.
24 Q. You see, the Panel obviously has to form a view about
25 how diligent officers were. You are telling us that you
35
1 are pretty clear you would have told people to make
2 notebook entries.
3 A. Uh-huh.
4 Q. You are telling us that you would have expected
5 the sergeant to ensure the notebooks were up to date
6 before everybody went off.
7 You are telling us you told Mr Cooke to draw up
8 a list and Mr Cooke and another to go and get the
9 clothing, and nobody did any of these things.
10 I asked you before about one aspect of that and
11 asked you whether you were surprised that your order
12 wasn't followed. Taking the totality of those things,
13 are you surprised or shocked?
14 A. I am surprised. In terms of trying to understand, you
15 know, why people behaved in the way they behaved,
16 I simply don't know. Perhaps it was just the business
17 of what was going on that they didn't do what they
18 should have done.
19 Q. Again, for those of you who aren't, or weren't at the
20 beginning of this Inquiry, very familiar with the
21 structure of the RUC, help us with this. We have been
22 told it was in this sense like an army, hierarchical;
23 that is that people were given orders, and, if they
24 didn't follow orders, that was regarded as pretty
25 serious. Would that be fair?
36
1 A. I wouldn't agree with that. I don't think it was just
2 as you portray it to be, as hierarchical. Certainly it
3 is a lot less hierarchical now. It was down to
4 individual people -- people are all different and
5 respond in different ways to different sets of
6 circumstances.
7 All I can say is that I am as clear as I can be that
8 I asked for certain things to be done. Unfortunately,
9 the sergeant at that time was dealing with the drunk
10 driver, so I was left to try to manage all of this
11 scenario without another level of supervisory support
12 beneath me. If the sergeant had perhaps been available
13 for those couple of hours, we could have had a bit more
14 checking done.
15 Q. Okay, but what you are saying then is this, is it: that
16 these directions you gave to people, which were not
17 followed, didn't amount to a gross dereliction of duty
18 as far as you were concerned? Surprising, yes, and
19 disappointing, yes, but not that serious. Is that fair?
20 A. No. Well, with the benefit of hindsight, it clearly was
21 serious.
22 Q. Right.
23 A. I now view it as very serious, because of the
24 circumstances that we ended up dealing with and the
25 outworkings of them.
37
1 As I said earlier, I can only express my
2 disappointment that people did not comply with the
3 instructions that I was -- I was trying to manage a set
4 of circumstances as best as I could in the
5 circumstances.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: The fact seems to be, whatever the cause,
7 that by the time the officers had gone off duty,
8 virtually nothing had happened to get the investigation
9 on a proper basis.
10 A. Well, sir, all I can say is --
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Well, is that right?
12 A. I wouldn't -- no, I wouldn't agree with that, sir.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: What had happened?
14 A. Well, clearly, sir, it took some time to secure the
15 scene. The scene had been secured. It took some time
16 for the officers to come back in who had went home at
17 3 o'clock in the morning, for telephone calls to be made
18 and for those officers to come back in and for those
19 officers to make statements to support investigation,
20 and that was being done.
21 Additionally, for the officers that had been on duty
22 all night, for them to make statements in relation to
23 what they had seen, and all of that was to support the
24 investigation. So there were actions that had been
25 taken to ensure that the investigation moved forward.
38
1 It is with sadness that I see that some of the
2 things I asked for weren't done, but at that time, I did
3 not realise that they were not being done.
4 MR UNDERWOOD: Very well. Thank you very much. Those are
5 the questions I have. As I say, there may be some
6 supplementals.
7 Questions from MR WOLFE
8 MR WOLFE: Good afternoon -- good morning. I am getting
9 ahead of myself. It was a long day yesterday.
10 My name is Wolfe. I am going to ask you some
11 questions on behalf of the Police Service.
12 I want to start by asking you about the resources
13 you had that night in terms of personnel and try to
14 build up a picture and sketch in some details about the
15 size of the geographical area that you were policing.
16 Now, the subdivision for which you had
17 responsibility on that night had three significant, in
18 Northern Ireland terms, urban areas. Isn't that
19 correct?
20 A. Yes, that's correct.
21 Q. They were Portadown --
22 A. Portadown.
23 Q. -- Lurgan, which I think is about a 10 to 15-minute
24 drive away to the north. Isn't that right?
25 A. That's right, sir, yes.
39
1 Q. And further west, Banbridge, which is about a 15 to
2 20-minute drive away. Is that correct?
3 A. That's correct, yes.
4 Q. You were, as you have described in your evidence, keen
5 to maintain a visible presence in each of those
6 locations?
7 A. That's right, yes.
8 Q. Obviously between those locations you had quite a large
9 swathe of rural area. Is that correct?
10 A. Yes, that's correct.
11 Q. You had a police officer, a police station, in each of
12 those three urban locations?
13 A. That's correct, yes.
14 Q. Now, in terms of your dedicated Portadown personnel
15 resource, as I understand it, on that night you had,
16 through Sergeant P89, dedicated that a Land Rover
17 comprising four officers would patrol the centre of the
18 town?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. We have in this hearing focused upon the flash point,
21 which is Thomas Street, Market Street, Woodhouse Street,
22 but you have made clear in your evidence that there were
23 other flash points in the Portadown area. Is that
24 correct?
25 A. Yes, that are -- there were.
40
1 Q. If we can perhaps briefly define "flash point"; a flash
2 point is somewhere, or a location where there is
3 a history of incidents perhaps of a sectarian nature
4 which have called for police attention in the past. Is
5 that fair?
6 A. That's fair, yes.
7 Q. There were several in Portadown?
8 A. There were, yes.
9 Q. The Land Rover crew which was led by -- not in
10 a hierarchical sense, but driven by Constable Neill
11 would they have had to have in the forefront of their
12 mind these other flash points that night or some of
13 them?
14 A. Yes, I expect they would have had them in the back of
15 their mind.
16 Q. If they were policing within, if you like, the town
17 centre, within the barriers, the security cordon, which
18 of those flash points you listed would they have had to
19 have some consideration of?
20 A. In addition to sort of Market Street, Woodhouse Street,
21 McGowan Buildings car park would have been the other one
22 that would have had a history of conflict.
23 Q. Yes. There has certainly been no evidence to suggest
24 that there was intelligence to suggest there was going
25 to be any incident that night, let alone an incident of
41
1 the significance that we are dealing with in this
2 Inquiry.
3 If there had been intelligence to suggest that there
4 was going to be a major fracas, what would the policing
5 response to that have been, had you been on notice of
6 that?
7 A. Well, if the intelligence had been considered of a high
8 enough standing, then there would have been, depending
9 on obviously what it said, there may well have been
10 additional resources deployed to seek to manage what the
11 intelligence was suggesting was going to happen, but in
12 the absence of any intelligence, it was a custom --
13 excuse me, almost a custom and practice that there was
14 a resource in the town centre at the weekends because of
15 the high potential that there was for disorder.
16 Q. Yes. Now, let me go back to the issue of your personnel
17 resources that night. We know from what you have said
18 that you had a Mobile Support Unit, which was positioned
19 in Banbridge. Isn't that correct?
20 A. That's correct, yes.
21 Q. A Mobile Support Unit is, as the name perhaps suggests,
22 a unit that is in a position to move, or should be in
23 a position to move, within the subdivision reasonably
24 quickly to deal with situations, for example, of public
25 disorder?
42
1 A. Well, yes. What I would say is -- again, forgive me,
2 but the structures of the RUC then, the Mobile Support
3 Unit was not actually a resource that I owned. It was
4 owned by the region, which is another tier up from me,
5 but, having said all of that, because it was operating
6 in the division that night, and I saw a risk, I could
7 have asked for the resource to be brought across to
8 support local resources in Portadown, which is what
9 I did that night.
10 Q. Now, in Portadown that night we know we had the four in
11 the Land Rover. We know that there were seven other
12 officers I think in two other -- two vehicles, perhaps
13 three vehicles -- my memory is not clear on that -- but
14 those other seven officers, were they a dedicated
15 resource for Portadown?
16 A. Yes. Their role would have been to have answered all
17 response calls in the wider Portadown area.
18 From memory, there was the main car, which was 7-0,
19 the back-up car and then a car allocated to an area that
20 was known as the Birches, which is out in a rural area
21 of Portadown.
22 Q. So they, as we saw, could be brought into the centre if
23 there was an issue?
24 A. That's right.
25 Q. If we go on in your statement to page [80881], if we
43
1 could have that up on the screen, and if we could
2 highlight the bottom paragraph, paragraph 15, if we
3 could just look at that section of your statement, you
4 say in that statement in the last sentence:
5 "I needed to know if the incident fitted into that
6 category", that being a serious incident -- sorry, "into
7 that category", being a typical Saturday night fight,
8 "or was more serious and this would allow me to
9 determine what follow-up action was needed."
10 Now, what you seem to be saying there -- correct me
11 if I am wrong -- is that there was a balancing exercise
12 to be worked out in terms of whether you set up a scene,
13 a crime scene. Is that fair?
14 A. Yes, that's reasonable, yes.
15 Q. Could you define for us what would tip the balance for
16 you into deploying resources to establish a crime scene?
17 A. What would tip the balance would be having the
18 information to know how serious a particular assault
19 was.
20 Sadly, because we were having so many
21 Friday/Saturday night assaults in Portadown, it is
22 clearly not possible to put a scene with the resourcing
23 that goes with it into all of those. So, therefore, one
24 needs to review each one on its own merits. Therefore,
25 it was important for me to find out through
44
1 Sergeant P89, who I had instructed to go to the
2 hospital, to try to ascertain what the extent of the
3 injury was, in order to make the judgment call then as
4 to whether we needed to actually put a scene in place in
5 relation to this case, or whether it was just one of
6 a number of Friday/Saturday night brawls at that time.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: "Putting a scene in place", does that mean
8 closing it off?
9 A. It does, sir, yes.
10 MR WOLFE: In terms of the resources you had that night, how
11 many -- if you had reached a decision that you now
12 needed to seal the area, close it off, how many
13 personnel would that involve and for how long?
14 A. Well, for how long could be hours. It certainly would
15 be for the -- there's little doubt it would have been
16 for the duration of the night duty up until 8 o'clock in
17 the morning and probably potentially some time after
18 that, depending on how quickly the Scenes of Crimes
19 Officer could be deployed to the scene, you know,
20 whether there was a requirement for photography, to get
21 those agencies out of their bed at that time, mapping.
22 In terms of the time, it could have been a considerable
23 time.
24 In terms of the numbers, you know, you are talking
25 probably three officers, someone to take the crime log
45
1 and certainly because of the security situation in
2 Northern Ireland at that time, you would probably need
3 another two to help him manage the incident control
4 point
5 Q. We know from evidence that the Land Rover crew, for
6 example, had been on duty from -- I think it was
7 3 o'clock on the Saturday afternoon.
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Is there a point where you had to think about letting
10 people stand down from duty because they had been on for
11 so long?
12 A. Well, clearly there is. In the absence of any
13 information that at that material time I was dealing
14 with a very serious assault, the officers obviously were
15 let go at 3 o'clock, because I didn't know at that stage
16 what I knew at 4 o'clock, which was actually this was
17 quite a serious matter -- in fact, a very serious
18 matter. So on that basis, they were let go.
19 The other point is that officers can only work for
20 a certain length of time. Those officers had been on,
21 as you said -- it was going to be 4 o'clock in the
22 morning before they got home probably. So it would have
23 been a very long day for those officers. That's
24 obviously a consideration as well.
25 MR WOLFE: Thank you.
46
1 MR O'HARE: I have no questions.
2 Questions from MR McKENNA
3 MR McKENNA: I have one or two questions, Mr Chairman, with
4 your leave.
5 My name is McKenna. I want to ask one or two
6 questions on behalf of the Hamill family.
7 I want to start by asking you this, Mr McCrum. As
8 you sit there, are you prepared to shoulder any
9 responsibility for the perceived shortcomings in the
10 initial stages of this investigation?
11 A. All I can say is that, you know, with the information
12 that I had at the time I had that information, I sought
13 to do everything my power to ensure that the
14 investigation was brought forward as well as it could
15 have been in all of the circumstances.
16 With the benefit of hindsight and looking at this
17 with a super-critical perspective, clearly there are
18 things that I could have done in terms of quality
19 checking which I didn't do
20 Q. Well, quality checking aside -- and I am not entirely
21 sure what you mean by that -- could you have asked, for
22 instance, of the police officers on the ground a little
23 more detail about the seriousness of the injuries to the
24 casualty, for example?
25 A. In dealing with the dynamic public disorder situation
47
1 that I found myself and my officers in that morning, the
2 officers I think displayed a lot of courage and
3 professionalism in bringing to a conclusion a situation
4 that had the potential to be very, very difficult.
5 The question in relation to talking to the officers,
6 I did speak to most of the officers as we made our way
7 up through the town centre, and I did seek to find out
8 from those officers what had taken place in terms of the
9 seriousness. No-one conveyed to me at any point that
10 this was a particularly serious assault. The focus in
11 terms of the feedback that I received was actually more
12 on why it had taken place as opposed to the extent of
13 the injuries
14 Q. Well, let me ask you this. This is capable of a "yes"
15 or "no" answer, Mr McCrum.
16 Did you ask the question: "What is the story with
17 that guy who was put into the ambulance on a stretcher?
18 How seriously injured is he?"
19 Did you ask that question?
20 A. I asked the question, but not in those words. I sought
21 to try to understand the extent of the injury, yes. So
22 the answer to your question, not using the words you
23 have used, but the answer to your question is: yes,
24 I did seek to try to find out the extent of the injury
25 to Mr Hamill and [D].
48
1 Unfortunately, the answers I got back did not help
2 in terms of getting to an understanding that quickly
3 about how serious the injuries were.
4 Q. So you are saying your junior officers withheld
5 information from you. Is that what you are telling the
6 Panel?
7 A. I am not saying that at all. All I am telling you is
8 what was conveyed to me. I can't seek to -- I think
9 probably because the officers at that stage felt they
10 were dealing with a wider public disorder situation,
11 they had concerns for their own safety. That probably
12 was potentially their focus. I can only say what was
13 conveyed to me.
14 Q. Because a number of the officers who were there -- and
15 I can take you to their statements which they made very
16 shortly afterwards, and I don't intend to unless you
17 need me to -- have described Mr Hamill variously. All
18 have said he was unconscious on the ground. One or two
19 of them have described his breathing as "rasping",
20 "laboured" or "difficult".
21 You are telling me or telling this Panel -- sorry --
22 that this information was not conveyed to you by your
23 junior officers?
24 A. That is correct. That information was not conveyed to
25 me at that time.
49
1 THE CHAIRMAN: But officers may not always tell you what you
2 want to know, because they may not realise. So did you
3 ask any of the officers, "How badly hurt is this man?"
4 A. Sir, I didn't put it like that. I sought to try --
5 I can't remember the language that I used. It wasn't --
6 THE CHAIRMAN: I am not asking if you used those precise
7 words, but did you ask questions to that effect?
8 A. I certainly asked at least a question to that effect,
9 and I can't remember to whom it was, but I sought to get
10 a better understanding of the nature of the injuries,
11 but no-one expressed to me -- any of the officers
12 expressed to me just what you have said in terms of the
13 rasping point.
14 At that stage, I was still under the impression that
15 we were simply dealing with another Saturday night
16 sectarian assault.
17 MR McKENNA: Let me ask about the sergeant whom you say you
18 sent to the hospital to establish what the injuries
19 were.
20 Now, I have to say in his interview to the
21 Inquiry -- and I can take you to the relevant portion --
22 he seems to be suggesting that it was his idea to go to
23 the hospital and check on the condition of the
24 casualties, but let's assume for the moment for the
25 purpose of this exercise that you sent him. We know the
50
1 journey time to Craigavon Hospital is in the region of
2 ten minutes.
3 Did you make any effort to contact him in the period
4 between him going to the hospital and reporting back to
5 you the condition of the casualties?
6 A. My assumption was that if there was anything to suggest
7 that anyone had been seriously injured, the sergeant
8 would have contacted me. So the answer to your question
9 is "no".
10 Q. You made that assumption, but you made no effort to
11 establish it?
12 A. Because the sergeant was a very experienced sergeant who
13 had many years' policing experience. It was not
14 unrealistic or unreasonable of me to conclude that if
15 the sergeant had identified that this was a serious
16 matter, he would have brought it immediately to my
17 attention.
18 Q. Because it is a fundamental issue, is it not, Mr McCrum,
19 because you have said in your evidence, and certainly in
20 your statement at various points, that, had you been
21 aware of the seriousness of the injuries, you might have
22 acted differently?
23 A. Yes, that's fair.
24 Q. Ultimately because of the perceived shortcomings in the
25 initial investigation, you were ultimately admonished.
51
1 Isn't that correct?
2 A. Yes, I was.
3 Q. After a disciplinary investigation.
4 If you are telling the Panel that, in fact, it was
5 because of the lack of information conveyed to you by
6 your junior officers and not because of any failing on
7 your part, why did you accept the admonishment?
8 A. I accepted the admonishment, but did not accept the
9 facts supporting the admonishment. For me, I was led to
10 believe the admonishment, I had to accept it. It was
11 a lawful order.
12 With the benefit of further hindsight, I realise now
13 I did not have to accept the admonishment, but
14 I accepted it almost under duress because I felt I was
15 being ordered, almost, to use that word.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: By whom?
17 A. Sir, by -- I had questioned the admonishment in the
18 first instance in writing and it had went up through our
19 professional standards, I think as far as the deputy
20 chief constable, and it had come back down through the
21 various chain of command suggesting that, you know,
22 I was to be admonished still and, really, I had really
23 little option but to accept the admonishment.
24 So rather than me -- what I thought to myself at the
25 time was, "If I don't accept this admonishment, will
52
1 that leave me exposed then to more 'discipline' from
2 within the service?" So I accepted the admonishment,
3 but did not accept the fact supporting the admonishment.
4 Sorry if that's a bit convoluted, but that's how
5 I viewed it.
6 Q. You disputed the admonishment for almost a year,
7 13 months I think. Would that be right?
8 A. I have simply no recollection of the time-frame.
9 Q. Superintendent Kennedy's report was January 2002 and
10 ultimately you accepted the admonishment, I think the
11 note is, in February 2003. Is that right?
12 A. It could well be. I can't recall the time period.
13 Q. By which stage you were a Chief Inspector. Is that
14 right?
15 A. Yes, that would be right.
16 Q. You had been promoted?
17 A. Yes, that would be right.
18 Q. You know, Mr McCrum, there is an expression -- I don't
19 think I need to ask the Panel to take judicial notice of
20 it, but everybody makes mistakes. Isn't that right?
21 A. Absolutely.
22 Q. Would you agree with the proposition that it is the mark
23 of the character of someone if they are prepared to
24 accept their mistakes and shortcomings?
25 A. Yes, where there are shortcomings and mistakes,
53
1 absolutely.
2 Q. But you are defiant, are you, Mr McCrum, that, in fact,
3 you did nothing wrong?
4 A. I take it -- the word "defiant" does not sit with me.
5 All I can say is I did my best in the circumstances that
6 I found myself in with the information that was conveyed
7 to me.
8 If the information had been conveyed differently at
9 a different time, I would suspect my actions would have
10 been slightly different, but on the basis of what
11 I knew, and at the time that I knew it, I felt that
12 I did all that I could do to try to make sure the
13 investigation was properly conducted.
14 Q. You see, you are prepared to sit there and blame your
15 junior officers, aren't you, Mr McCrum, junior officers
16 on the night?
17 A. I am not blaming anyone. I am simply giving to the
18 Inquiry what I said and what I did on the night in
19 question.
20 Q. Even though you were their supervising officer and
21 ultimately the buck stopped with you, didn't it?
22 A. Yes, I accept that.
23 Q. Now, if I could turn, Mr McCrum, to the issue of the
24 press releases just briefly, you were in charge of that
25 on the night, were you not?
54
1 A. Yes, as the inspector on duty, you would be responsible,
2 if there was any need for any communication with our
3 press department, for the inspector on duty to put that
4 together.
5 Q. I think that message would go to the press office at
6 headquarters, it being a weekend. Am I right in that?
7 A. Yes, that would be right, yes.
8 Q. That press release can be found at page [15068]. You
9 will it is the top paragraph of the main text:
10 "Two youths have been detained in hospital with head
11 injuries following a clash between rival factions in
12 Portadown ..."
13 Is that right?
14 A. Yes, that's what it says, yes.
15 Q. Now, you authorised the message to the press office?
16 A. Yes, that's correct.
17 Q. Can we take it that you had read it, had read the
18 message that was to be sent?
19 A. Well, I can't remember that. All I know is I put
20 a message out explaining what I understood to be the
21 circumstances at that time to the press office. I don't
22 know whether that's one and the same as that document
23 there. It may well be, but, because I can't see my
24 original message to the press office, I don't know
25 whether it is one and the same, but it may be.
55
1 Q. I want to suggest to you, Mr McCrum, that that press
2 release is potentially misleading?
3 A. With the benefit of hindsight and with the knowledge
4 that I now have, it is misleading.
5 Having said that, at the time, that was the message
6 that was being conveyed to me. From the first time
7 I was notified about the disorder at 1.50 am right
8 through to my conversations with officers at the scene,
9 the recurring theme was that there were rival factions.
10 My own observations to some degree bore that out,
11 but clearly, with the passage of time, that was, as you
12 quite rightly pointed out, something that was not
13 accurate.
14 Q. Yes, because, in fact, the sergeant on the night,
15 Sergeant P89, in his statement was able to say that
16 Constables Adams and Warnock both informed him that
17 a number of civilians had been attacked and assaulted by
18 a large mob.
19 A. Well, all I can say is what was conveyed to me, and what
20 was conveyed to me by many of the officers was this, to
21 use the phrase, notion of rival factions and no-one at
22 any stage contradicted that position to me.
23 Q. You see, the interesting thing about Adams and Warnock,
24 Mr McCrum, is they actually arrive on the scene after
25 the initial incident. So they obviously received the
56
1 information about how the incident started from officers
2 at the scene, I would suggest to you?
3 A. I have simply no idea how they concluded what they
4 concluded. All I can provide evidence to is what was
5 conveyed to me, and I am quite clear about the rival
6 factions.
7 From the original call that was made to the police
8 station to the reference from the officers in the
9 Land Rover that, "They are killing each other", to use
10 that phrase, to the conversation I had with
11 Constable Cooke, to my own observations, all of that was
12 in tune with initially the view that this was rival
13 factions.
14 Q. This is more information then that was not imparted to
15 you, Mr McCrum. Is that right?
16 A. Well, information was imparted to me. That information
17 that you are suggesting obviously was different
18 information.
19 Q. You really didn't have a handle on what was going on at
20 all, Mr McCrum, did you?
21 A. I dispute that completely. You know, I went to the
22 scene. I took control of the scene. I dealt with the
23 officers in managing, you know, what was a very
24 difficult situation in the early hours of Sunday morning
25 in Portadown at a time when policing in Portadown was
57
1 very dangerous, and to have a small number of police
2 officers trying to manage a very large group, quite
3 a number of whom were heavily intoxicated, who were
4 aggressive, who were seeking to engage us in conflict,
5 was a major policing challenge.
6 To bring that to a conclusion in that way in the
7 knowledge that I had was actually -- my view was that it
8 was good policing.
9 Q. Did you ever speak to these junior officers after this
10 incident and yourself admonish them?
11 A. No.
12 MR McKENNA: Thank you, Mr McCrum.
13 MR McCOMB: No questions.
14 MS DINSMORE: No questions.
15 Questions from MR O'CONNOR
16 MR O'CONNOR: A couple of questions, Mr Chairman.
17 Now, Chief Superintendent McCrum, can I take you
18 back, first of all, to page [09960], please? This is
19 your journal. It is referred to as a notebook. It is
20 your journal. Isn't that right?
21 A. Yes, that's correct.
22 Q. Could I ask you, first of all, to check in your journal
23 now, your actual journal? You have it with you, don't
24 you?
25 A. Yes.
58
1 Q. There are really two relevant pages.
2 A. There are.
3 Q. If you go to the first page in the top.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. The time at the second line written there, what do you
6 have written in hand in your journal?
7 A. I have "1.50 am informed by ..."
8 Q. It says "1.51" in the typed copy. This is for the
9 Inquiry rather than yourself, chief superintendent, but
10 there is an unredacted copy which I don't want up on the
11 screen. At 12365, it refers to "1.58 am".
12 Now, your actual journal is accurate. Is that
13 right?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. It says "1.50". Is that right?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. If we can then take you to the second page which refers
18 to Cooke and Orr --
19 A. Uh-huh.
20 Q. -- there is a typographical error in the second page.
21 It must be the next page over -- this is not working.
22 It is the second page of the journal.
23 I wonder, could Mr Underwood help me, which is the
24 second page of the journal, if there is a number for it,
25 or the Inquiry, because I have an unredacted copy in the
59
1 bundle the Inquiry gave me?
2 MR UNDERWOOD: Sorry. I have had no notice of any of this.
3 I have no idea.
4 MR O'CONNOR: Sorry. I can give you the -- it is [12366] is
5 the copy which the Inquiry has given me. You directed
6 Constable Cooke and the second one is Constable Orr.
7 Isn't that right?
8 A. Yes.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Are there others who are going to ask
10 questions of the witness?
11 MS DINSMORE: No.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: I suggest we have our break now so you can
13 get hold of the documents.
14 MR O'CONNOR: I don't think it is necessary, Mr Chairman.
15 I will only be five minutes. I am happy to move on.
16 There is no issue about it. I am coming to my point
17 now.
18 Chief Superintendent, you have two pages of
19 a journal there. Isn't that right?
20 A. Yes, that's correct.
21 Q. The entries in that journal follow contemporaneously
22 with your journal entry of the night before, your
23 previous duty?
24 A. Yes, that's right.
25 Q. What was the previous duty?
60
1 A. Saturday, 26th April.
2 Q. And then Sunday, 27th April?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. What follows that? What is the next day's entry?
5 A. Well, into Monday, 28th April, just consecutively.
6 Q. When did you -- it is handwritten. Is that right?
7 A. It is, yes.
8 Q. I am going to ask you to leave your journal with the
9 Inquiry so that the handwritten actual copy can be
10 looked at by the Inquiry at any time, but when did you
11 fill in your journal entries?
12 A. My custom and practice was always to fill my journal in
13 just before I terminated duty. So that would have been
14 done around probably 8 o'clock on the Sunday morning.
15 Q. Yes. If I can take you to halfway down the second
16 page of your journal entry -- that's fine:
17 "Directed Con Cooke and Con Orr mobiles to go to
18 Craigavon Area Hospital and obtain the clothing from the
19 two IPs."
20 Is that right?
21 A. That's right, yes.
22 Q. Did you fill in that entry at just before you went off
23 duty at 8 o'clock in the morning?
24 A. Yes, that's correct.
25 Q. Did you fill in the truth in your journal at that time?
61
1 A. Oh, yes, absolutely.
2 Q. Had anybody said to you, "You didn't tell us to go to
3 the hospital and get clothing" at that stage?
4 A. No.
5 Q. Had Constable Cooke or Constable Orr -- had there been
6 an issue about getting clothing at the hospital?
7 A. No, not with me.
8 Q. Obviously you were not aware there was going to be
9 a public Inquiry 11 years later about that entry?
10 A. No.
11 Q. Just a couple of minor points. The occurrence book in
12 Banbridge was signed at 3.10 am. Isn't that right?
13 A. That's correct, yes.
14 Q. I think the Inquiry has that. Banbridge, which is where
15 you went to -- did you go to Banbridge first or Lurgan?
16 A. I think I went to Banbridge. Normally I would have went
17 to Banbridge first and then I would have went to Lurgan
18 because it was closer to Portadown. So I am pretty
19 confident I went to Banbridge first.
20 Q. I think there is a note somewhere the Banbridge is
21 10.9 miles from Portadown.
22 A. Okay.
23 Q. It was suggested it was a fundamental issue --
24 "fundamental issue" was the word used -- about
25 Sergeant P89, when he was at the hospital -- this is
62
1 fundamental -- that he -- that you should have phoned
2 him at some stage to see what his findings were.
3 Now, we know there was a conflab at the hospital and
4 the two police officers left, they say, as a result of
5 that. They were not welcome. There is one particular
6 individual we know of that made them particularly
7 unwelcome
8 A. Uh-huh.
9 Q. But if there was something serious to report at that
10 stage, or some information for you, would you regularly
11 phone that -- would you have phoned Sergeant P89
12 maybe every ten minutes to find if there was something,
13 or would you, given the chain of command, expect him to
14 phone you if there was something important to tell you?
15 A. Yes, it would have been my expectation, if
16 Sergeant P89 had identified anything serious, that,
17 he would have simply rang me and told me.
18 Q. In 1997, you were the duty inspector. If you gave out
19 orders to the various constables to go and do something
20 or find information, was it your habit or did the
21 constables expect you to phone them on a regular basis
22 to find out if they had found anything, or again, did
23 you expect them to come to you?
24 A. No. I would have expected them to have come to me.
25 Q. You would never be off the phone if you had to follow up
63
1 every single order that you gave to constables. Isn't
2 that right?
3 A. Yes. That's a fair point, yes.
4 Q. It would be ridiculous to suggest that you should be
5 phoning those constables all the time?
6 A. Yes, it would be.
7 Q. It would not work, would it?
8 A. No, it would not work operationally.
9 Q. There was one final point that was discussed in the past
10 with various police officers and that was the thorny
11 issue of the 15 minutes' over time?
12 A. Uh-huh.
13 Q. Now, I don't want a whole treatise on it, I just want to
14 know, at the time, there was varying evidence there was
15 never an issue, there was an issue. I am not suggesting
16 that police officers at that time were in any way
17 mercenary. They are entitled to be paid if they were
18 working overtime. I want to neutralise any heat in the
19 suggestion.
20 What I am asking is this: was it your experience
21 that there was maybe grumbling about the 15 minutes
22 before and the 15 minutes afterwards and having to get
23 authority for overtime to fill in statements, that type
24 of thing?
25 A. Yes. It would have been perceived as a bit of a hassle,
64
1 to put it like that, you know, to have to go and get
2 that authority, because the constable would know that he
3 couldn't actually work on without reference to
4 a sergeant or even an inspector who would then authorise
5 him or her to work on. So, yes.
6 Q. You had to give the authorisation?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. And they had to come to you about that?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Now, in certain circumstances, authorisation would be no
11 problem.
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. But other times you would have to say, "Come back and
14 make your statements when you are on duty again".
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. When these officers went off duty out of the Land Rover,
17 it wouldn't be unusual for the officers to come in, go
18 off duty and zip on home and make their statements at
19 a later date?
20 A. No, that wouldn't be unusual, particularly whenever they
21 had worked from 3 o'clock through to 3 o'clock the
22 following morning.
23 MR O'CONNOR: Thank you.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr Underwood?
25 MR UNDERWOOD: Nothing arising. Thank you, sir.
65
1 Questions from THE PANEL
2 THE CHAIRMAN: Just a couple of matters.
3 The role of the Land Rover and the crew there was
4 really to prevent by the police presence any outbreak of
5 violence, wasn't it, rather than to have to cope with
6 a major incident if it occurred?
7 A. Well, sir, a bit of both, sir. Certainly predominantly
8 to do the prevention piece, but sometimes in public
9 order situations things arise so spontaneously that it
10 is always not possible to do the prevention and then you
11 are into trying to manage it thereafter.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: The other thing is you telephoned the
13 hospital and you were told then by the surgeon to whom
14 you spoke, or you were led to understand, that
15 Robert Hamill's condition was serious.
16 A. Uh-huh.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: I think that was about 4 o'clock in the
18 morning.
19 A. Some time after 4.00, sir, yes.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: What action, if any, did you take at that
21 stage to see that a crime scene was created?
22 A. The action was I knew -- first of all, I knew that the
23 vehicle gates in the town centre were closed, so there
24 was no vehicular movement. I knew there was a police
25 car in the vicinity of the scene, so there was no-one
66
1 going to be ploughing through the scene. I knew it was
2 4 o'clock in the morning, so the likelihood of many
3 people travelling through the town centre, I would not
4 want to say was zero but close to zero.
5 I also knew we needed to sit down with the detective
6 and work out exactly where the scene was. So whenever
7 the detective came to the station, one of our first
8 conversations was around trying to identify exactly
9 where the scene was. Hence the requirement for the
10 constable to try to inform the detective as to where
11 exactly the scene was, sir.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: So in short, you considered there was nothing
13 more you needed to do when you learned of
14 Robert Hamill's condition being thought to be serious?
15 A. Well, sir, all I will say is, you know, there were
16 a number of actions I took quite quickly around that
17 time. It was about, first of all, speaking to --
18 getting the list -- trying to get a list drawn up of who
19 was at the scene to try to inform the detective whenever
20 he was coming in, making a decision to call the officers
21 who actually had went back to their beds an hour and
22 a half previously to get them back in off duty.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: This was all done after you learned of
24 Robert Hamill's injury?
25 A. Yes, it was. Those for me were actions to try -- what
67
1 was in my head, the primary thing that was in my head
2 was to try to support Don Keys and support the
3 investigation to ensure we maximised the early recovery
4 of whatever evidence we could.
5 The other point I suppose that has already arisen,
6 sir, was just to make the request that we needed to have
7 two cars to go to the hospital. The reason for two cars
8 was to avoid any cross-contamination, given there were
9 two victims.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Had you already, by the time you had spoken
11 to the hospital yourself, sent Cooke and the sergeant to
12 the scene?
13 A. I can't remember, sir, who was sent to the scene, but
14 I know there was someone at the scene.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: Before you had phoned the hospital?
16 A. Sir, I am sorry. I simply can't remember the exact --
17 with any degree of honesty, the exact time-line around
18 that in terms of timing.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: But other than, if it didn't happen until
20 after you phoned the hospital, you did nothing about
21 arranging a crime scene than, as I say, if it happened
22 after your phone call to the hospital, sending Cooke and
23 the sergeant to the scene?
24 A. Because up to that -- yes, sir, because up to that time
25 I wasn't aware we were going to have to manage a crime
68
1 scene. It was only whenever I made the call at
2 4 o'clock in the morning, or shortly after 4.00, that
3 the whole issue was obviously significantly raised in my
4 mind as a priority.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. Thank you.
6 Further questions from MR UNDERWOOD
7 MR UNDERWOOD: There is something perhaps I should have
8 picked up.
9 Can we have a split page? On one side have
10 page [09960] and on the other [12366]. Can we highlight
11 on [09960] the last five or six lines and highlight on
12 the other page the first third?
13 If we look at the right-hand page, this is what
14 I took you to, Chief Superintendent, and is described in
15 the police records as your copy notebook entry. If we
16 pick it up on the right-hand side, three lines from the
17 top of the yellow box:
18 "Instructed Con Cooke in consultation with other
19 section officers who had been at the scene to draw up
20 a list of those persons who had been positively
21 identified at the scene."
22 Now, if we go to the left-hand side again, four
23 lines from the bottom of the box:
24 "Detective Constable Keys instructed Constable Cooke
25 in consultation with other section officers who had been
69
1 at the scene to draw up a list of those persons ..."
2 Now we find you have your original with you, which
3 is it?
4 A. Sorry. You can never find it when ...
5 Q. No hurry.
6 A. "Instructed Constable Cooke in consultation with other
7 section officers who had been at the scene to draw up
8 a list of those persons who had been positively
9 identified at the scene."
10 Q. Can you explain how there is a typed version in the
11 police records which says that Detective Constable Keys
12 instructed Constable Cooke?
13 A. I have no idea, sir. All I know is this is my journal
14 entry which I wrote at the time. So this is what
15 I stand over.
16 Q. Did you deliver your journal entries to anybody at any
17 stage for them to be typed up?
18 A. I am sure I did, sir, but I can't recall when that was,
19 but evidently I must have, insofar as it is here in
20 front of me.
21 Q. We can track this down. I strongly suspect it comes
22 from the Kennedy report. How does that strike you?
23 A. Well, that is very possible.
24 SIR JOHN EVANS: This is the page on the left, his journal?
25 MR UNDERWOOD: Yes. They both are.
70
1 SIR JOHN EVANS: It is possible simply the full stop is in
2 the wrong place? The wording on the screen is exactly
3 as in your journal:
4 "Contacted call-out CID Officer D/C Keys."
5 Then:
6 "Instructed Con Cook in consultation ..."
7 Is that possible?
8 A. Yes, that is possible.
9 MR UNDERWOOD: It is obvious when you say it. Thank you
10 very much. I have nothing else arising out of that.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr McCrum.
12 A. Thank you, sir.
13 (The witness withdrew)
14 THE CHAIRMAN: We will break off until midday. I suspect we
15 shall finish by lunchtime, shall we not?
16 MR UNDERWOOD: Yes.
17 (11.45 am)
18 (A short break)
19 (12.00 noon)
20 MR UNDERWOOD: We are ready to resume with Mr McBurney.
21 (Recorded interview of Mr Maynard McBurney played)
22 MR UNDERWOOD: I hope that gives a fair picture of the man
23 and the degree to which he was cooperative with the
24 Inquiry, it has to be said.
25 With that, I have no more to offer for today, sir
71
1 THE CHAIRMAN: We have a witness to read now, have we?
2 MR UNDERWOOD: We have a witness to read at a convenient
3 moment. I was not proposing to read him today, because
4 he does not actually fit particularly at the moment. It
5 was sheer happenstance that we were going to be slotting
6 him in today. I will certainly make sure he is read
7 when he fits best.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Shall we adjourn now until 10.30 on Tuesday
9 or ought we to sit at 10.00?
10 MR UNDERWOOD: Would you forgive me a moment while I just
11 look at the witness list for Tuesday?
12 10.30 would certainly suit
13 THE CHAIRMAN: 10.30 am. Very well. 10.30 am on Tuesday.
14 (12.40 pm)
15 (The hearing adjourned until 10.30 am on Tuesday, 15th
16 September 2009)
17
18 --ooOoo--
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1 I N D E X
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3
MR ALAN GEORGE McCRUM (sworn) .................... 1
4 Questions from MR UNDERWOOD ............... 1
Questions from MR WOLFE ................... 39
5 Questions from MR McKENNA ................. 47
Questions from MR O'CONNOR ................ 58
6 Questions from THE PANEL .................. 66
Further questions from MR UNDERWOOD ....... 69
7
(Recorded interview of ........................... 71
8 Mr Maynard McBurney played)
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73
