Transcripts
Return to the list of transcripts
Transcript
Hearing: 27th January 2009, day 9
Click here to download the LiveNote version
- - - - - - - - - -
PUBLIC INQUIRY INTO THE DEATH OF
ROBERT HAMILL
- - - - - - - - - -
Held at:
Interpoint
20-24 York Street
Belfast
on Tuesday, 27th January 2009
commencing at 10.00 am
Day 9
1 Tuesday, 27th January 2009
2 (10.00 am)
3 MR UNDERWOOD: Good morning, sir. I call Colin Hull.
4 MR COLIN MARTIN HULL (sworn)
5 Examination by MR UNDERWOOD
6 MR UNDERWOOD: Morning, Mr Hull.
7 A. Morning.
8 Q. My name is Underwood. I will be asking questions to
9 start with and, in fact, most of the questions. Some
10 other people may ask some at the end of it.
11 Are your full names Colin Martin Hull?
12 A. It is, yes.
13 Q. If we just look on the screen, you should find in
14 a moment page [80498]. I want you to identify whether
15 this is your witness statement.
16 A. It is.
17 Q. Can we just flick through the pages so we make sure we
18 have not missed anything out? That's your statement, is
19 it? Is it true?
20 A. It is, yes.
21 Q. Can we also look at page [00542]? That's the first
22 page.
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. It goes over the page, I think, just to have a signature
25 on it and a witness. Is that a statement you gave to
1
1 xxxxxxxxxxxxx--
2 A. It is, yes.
3 Q. -- apparently on 15th May 1997?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Was that true as well?
6 A. It was.
7 Q. What I want to do is ask you about the events of the
8 early hours of 27th April 1997 and get your memory of it
9 as best we can. If we have to go back to documents, by
10 all means let's do it, but let us see how we can do
11 without.
12 Can we go back to the map that was on screen, the
13 standard map? What we are interested in is the early
14 hours, about 1.30, something like that, onwards, on
15 27th April.
16 At about 1.30 where were you?
17 A. At 1.30 I left McKeever's pub.
18 Q. Can you show us on the map where that is? Just to
19 confirm, if you see the marking E, that says it is
20 McKeever's pub. Can you confirm that?
21 A. I can't see that.
22 Q. Can you see where we are? There is Woodhouse Street
23 starting at the centre going up towards the left.
24 A. Sorry. I can't see that.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: The second square in, second square from the
2
1 top, second square in from the left, just above the word
2 "Portadown".
3 A. Yes, I see it now, yes. Correct.
4 MR UNDERWOOD: So the marking "E" is the pub, is it?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Can you tell us what time you left there?
7 A. 1.30.
8 Q. Do you remember why that time sticks in your mind?
9 A. Me and the other friend were the last people to leave.
10 That was the time it was, 1.30, so it was.
11 Q. Was that Vincent McNeice?
12 A. It was, yes.
13 Q. Do you recall what you were wearing that night?
14 A. I might have been wearing cream jeans, black boots,
15 maybe a grey jacket.
16 Q. How good is your memory of it?
17 A. Well, it was a long time ago. It was 12 years ago. So
18 the one thing that sticks in my mind is the RUC's
19 failure to get out of the Land Rover and help
20 Robert Hamill.
21 Q. Uh-huh. How good is your memory of other parts of it?
22 A. My memory is okay, unfortunately.
23 Q. Okay. Had you had much to drink by the time 1.30 was
24 up?
25 A. I had eight or nine pints.
3
1 Q. How were you feeling on that?
2 A. Fine.
3 Q. Where were you going when you left?
4 A. I was going to go to Boss Hoggs.
5 Q. Right. We know where that is here. If we look back on
6 this map, do you see where the High Street is? Do you
7 see the black box that's marked? That's the crossroads.
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. If we track up to the right moving upwards, there is the
10 High Street. Do you see it?
11 A. Uh-huh.
12 Q. Then there is a "C" marked. That's the marking we have
13 on this map for Boss Hoggs. Can you confirm that's
14 where you were going?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. All right. What did you know about the reputation of
17 this part of town?
18 A. Well, Portadown, at the time, did have a bad reputation,
19 but I pretty much kept myself to myself in Portadown.
20 I had no problems with any Protestant people of the
21 town. I wasn't well-known to Protestant people. I have
22 been to Boss Hoggs quite a few times to get something to
23 eat. I would have had Protestant friends.
24 Q. We have heard from Mr Mallon that he was walking up
25 Woodhouse Street at the time you were walking down and
4
1 bumped into you and told you -- warned you there was
2 trouble down at the crossroads and not to go down there.
3 Do you recall that?
4 A. I don't recall seeing Mr Mallon.
5 Q. If he, or anybody, had stopped you halfway down at 1.30
6 on a Sunday morning going to that crossroads, telling
7 you there is trouble down there, what would your
8 response have been?
9 A. I wouldn't go.
10 Q. If we look at page [00226], that's a photograph up
11 Woodhouse Street from the junction.
12 A. Uh-huh.
13 Q. You can see there is a curve there. As you were walking
14 down towards where the photograph was taken from, did
15 you see a Land Rover at any point?
16 A. I did, yes.
17 Q. At that stage, what was going on?
18 A. I recognised Colin Prunty's voice. There were also
19 girls banging on the back of the police Land Rover
20 shouting for help. Me and Mr McNeice ran towards to see
21 what was going on to help. There was a mob of 25 to 30
22 people running around, mayhem. From out of nowhere,
23 I was hit on the side of the head.
24 Q. Okay. Just take this in stages. If we go to the
25 standard model and see if we can get a view of the
5
1 night-time scene. Here we have a scene. It has
2 a Land Rover there.
3 First of all, can you tell us what you say about
4 whether the Land Rover was there when you came down?
5 A. Yes, as it was, at the Halifax.
6 Q. The people that were running around, can you describe
7 whether they were on one side of the Land Rover or the
8 other or were they just all over the place?
9 A. All over the place.
10 Q. All right. You heard Colin Prunty's voice, you told us.
11 A. Uh-huh.
12 Q. Did you see him at that point?
13 A. I seen Colin briefly, yes.
14 Q. Where was he?
15 A. He was also at the back of the Land Rover shouting for
16 help.
17 Q. Right. What else was happening around the Land Rover?
18 A. The girls were also banging on the back of the
19 Land Rover.
20 Q. On the back?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. All the doors were closed, were they?
23 A. They were, yes.
24 Q. As you were walking down, before you got past the
25 Land Rover, did you see anybody on the ground?
6
1 A. There were two people on the ground.
2 Q. We need to give you control of this screen and do
3 a screen shot. I hope there is a pen in front of you.
4 Right. Once we have done the screen shot, we can give
5 you the chance now, if you would, with that pen, to mark
6 where you saw the two people on the ground.
7 A. One was here at this side and one was at the other side.
8 Q. If this helps you, this photograph was taken from
9 outside Eastwoods, so you are looking across --
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Can you do the marking?
12 A. Here.
13 Q. The first one -- number 1, then, pretty much outside
14 Number 7 Bakery?
15 A. Yes, and the other one was here.
16 Q. All right. The other one is then to our left, on
17 number 2. Looking at it, it doesn't seem as if you
18 could have seen number 1 until you got past the
19 Land Rover.
20 A. Yes, that's correct.
21 Q. Okay. Sorry. We are just saving this.
22 At some point, I know you got closer to these
23 people. I think you knew Robert Hamill?
24 A. I didn't know Robert well. I just knew Robert to see.
25 Q. Eventually, did you see that one of these two was
7
1 Robert Hamill?
2 A. Correct.
3 Q. Which one? Was it number 1 or number 2?
4 A. Robert was number 2.
5 Q. Now, when you first saw him on the ground, was there
6 anything going on around him?
7 A. He was being kicked around the head.
8 Q. Difficult, I know, to estimate, but can you tell us
9 about how many people were involved in that?
10 A. Six, seven, maybe eight people.
11 Q. Okay. Was there any girl or woman with him?
12 A. There was. There were people over the top trying to
13 protect him.
14 Q. Right. One or two people or more?
15 A. I think it was two.
16 Q. Okay. While that was going on, did you see anything
17 happening around number 1, the other person on the
18 street?
19 A. At that stage, number 1 was unconscious. There was
20 a girl with him, but there was no other crowd around.
21 Q. Okay. Now we know that at some point a crowd was formed
22 into a line and they moved their way up towards
23 West Street. Did you see that?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. So this is before that, is it?
8
1 A. Sorry?
2 Q. This is before that happened, is it?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Did you see anybody attempting to help get these people
5 away from Robert Hamill?
6 A. No.
7 Q. Did you see anybody in the Land Rover?
8 A. No.
9 Q. Did you see anybody -- any policemen in the area at all?
10 A. Not at this time, no. There was a Land Rover there, but
11 there were no police officers outside.
12 Q. Was anything being shouted?
13 A. "Fenian bastards".
14 Q. Did you get the impression there were any Catholics in
15 the crowd doing anything?
16 A. Among the ...
17 Q. In the crowd?
18 A. Among the Protestant crowd?
19 Q. Yes.
20 A. No.
21 Q. We have heard that at some point police helped get
22 people away from Robert Hamill, who were kicking him.
23 Did you see that?
24 A. No.
25 Q. What happened to you as you were going past the
9
1 Land Rover?
2 A. From the side, I was hit on the side of the head.
3 Q. Did that knock you down or was it --
4 A. No.
5 Q. Right. So what happened to you after that?
6 A. I just proceeded to help people --
7 Q. I am so sorry. How did you help them?
8 A. Well, Robert was lying on the ground. I went over to
9 him to try to protect him from the mob that were still
10 there and were still willing to attack him.
11 Q. At this stage -- have I got it right -- there were
12 perhaps two women down on the ground trying to protect
13 him and a group of seven or eight or so trying to kick
14 him or kicking him? What exactly did you do? Did you
15 pull them off or hit them or what?
16 A. After the beating was over, one guy made another attempt
17 to kick Robert.
18 Q. When you say "after the beating was over", how did it
19 stop?
20 A. It just basically stopped. That was just it.
21 Q. They just gave up, did they?
22 A. They just stopped for no reason, just stopped.
23 Q. You saw this, did you?
24 A. I witnessed maybe the last five, six seconds of the
25 beating.
10
1 Q. So six, seven, eight or whatever were kicking and they
2 just all backed off?
3 A. Just stopped.
4 Q. And still stood there?
5 A. Yes, the mob was still there, still present.
6 Q. Shouting?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. What were they shouting?
9 A. They were shouting, "This is our fucking town, yous
10 Fenian bastards. Yous shouldn't be here".
11 Q. You are quite sure, are you, that nobody else was
12 pulling them off? You were the only one getting
13 involved?
14 A. I stayed with Robert, so I did, to protect him.
15 Q. So how did you help if they stopped doing this on their
16 own?
17 A. I stayed with Robert to prevent another attack, to
18 protect him, shield him.
19 Q. Right. So you didn't see anybody else pulling these
20 people off or preventing them kicking him?
21 A. Just the two girls, no-one else.
22 Q. But they were not pulling them off, were they?
23 A. No, no.
24 Q. When you said you stayed there, did you crouch down or
25 stand there?
11
1 A. I crouched down.
2 Q. Sorry. You were telling us then there was a further
3 attack. What happened after that?
4 A. Well, another guy made an attempt to attack Robert
5 again. I then intercepted him, pushed him away.
6 Q. Did there ever come a point when another group started
7 attacking him?
8 A. No.
9 Q. So there was never a point at which you saw anybody,
10 policeman or otherwise, pulling anybody off from
11 attacking him?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Were you attacked again?
14 A. I was, yes.
15 Q. How did that happen?
16 A. Well, it happened when I went over to see how D was,
17 when I was jumped, but I managed to break free.
18 Q. While that happened, while you were being attacked then,
19 could Mr Hamill have been attacked again?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Is that because you were keeping your eyes on him all
22 the time or because the time was too short?
23 A. Someone else was with Robert.
24 Q. One of the difficulties the Panel is going to have, of
25 course, is that everybody saw parts of a very
12
1 distressing situation here and they are going to have to
2 try to match people's accounts with other people's.
3 Can I just put to you some other accounts that have
4 been given so you can comment on them for us?
5 One thing we have been told is that by the time one
6 or more girls went over to Robert Hamill the kicking had
7 stopped, but that's not your case -- that's not your
8 evidence, is it? Your evidence is that the kicking was
9 going on while the girls were there. Is that right?
10 A. I witnessed, yes.
11 Q. Colin Prunty has told us that he pulled people away who
12 were kicking, but you say that couldn't have happened.
13 Is that right?
14 A. Well, Colin Prunty was there before I was. It's
15 a possibility.
16 Q. He says --
17 THE CHAIRMAN: What you say is, when you were with him and
18 you didn't see Prunty, he wasn't at that stage --
19 sorry -- when you were with Robert Hamill, even if
20 Prunty was there, he wasn't at that stage doing
21 anything?
22 A. No.
23 MR UNDERWOOD: As far as you were concerned, he was by the
24 Land Rover, I think?
25 A. He was, yes.
13
1 Q. Mr Prunty has also told us that he saw police pulling
2 people away from kicking Robert Hamill and they were
3 successful in doing that.
4 Again, you didn't see that?
5 A. No, I didn't see that, no.
6 Q. You are quite sure you saw people kicking him, are you?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. You are quite sure this is at a time when Mr Prunty was
9 by the Land Rover?
10 A. Correct.
11 Q. You are quite sure that at the time you saw him being
12 kicked, there was one or more girls on the ground with
13 him?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Were you injured when you were attacked, when you were
16 over by the --
17 A. No, I was fine.
18 Q. What did you do after that?
19 A. I went back over to Robert and stayed with Robert until
20 the ambulance came.
21 Q. Did you go to the Land Rover at any stage?
22 A. No.
23 Q. Did you shout at the police at any stage?
24 A. I shouted for them to come out and help.
25 Q. So you were shouting at the Land Rover, were you?
14
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. I am just watching pens.
3 By that stage, there you were back with
4 Robert Hamill again. What was the situation? Were
5 people still trying to attack or were there crowds
6 around still or what?
7 A. No, the crowd was still there. They formed
8 a line across the road. The attacking stopped.
9 Q. Right. When you say "across the road", can you show us
10 on here?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. We can move the picture if you want.
13 A. No, the picture is fine.
14 Q. Can you draw the line for us very roughly? So
15 Robert Hamill was on the wrong side of the line, was he?
16 A. He was here.
17 Q. Number 2?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Was anything making them form a line or --
20 A. No. Of their own accord, they just formed a line.
21 Q. Did there come a point when they moved up towards
22 West Street?
23 A. There was, yes.
24 Q. So they had to pass by Robert Hamill to do that, did
25 they?
15
1 A. They did.
2 Q. Were you still there?
3 A. I was.
4 Q. Were there police with them at that stage?
5 A. No.
6 Q. So they all just moved on, as a line, up West Street,
7 did they?
8 A. They did.
9 Q. When the ambulance came, were there police on the
10 ground?
11 A. When the ambulance arrived, that was the first time
12 I seen the police.
13 Q. Do you know where those police came from?
14 A. They came from the Land Rover.
15 Q. Did you see any other police cars?
16 A. No.
17 Q. Could there have been police cars parked around the area
18 without you seeing them?
19 A. Not to my knowledge, no.
20 Q. Is it possible that there were police out in the crowd
21 without you seeing them?
22 A. Could have been possible, but not to my knowledge.
23 Q. Can you tell us what state Robert Hamill was in while
24 you were with him?
25 A. The state Robert Hamill was in at that stage, to me, was
16
1 like he was in a deep sleep and ...
2 Q. Deeply unconscious -- unconscious anyway?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Bleeding?
5 A. No.
6 Q. We have heard there was some liquid around him. Did you
7 see any of that?
8 A. I can't recall that.
9 Q. Okay. Any broken bottles around him, do you recall?
10 A. Again, I can't recall that.
11 Q. Okay. Was he making any noise?
12 A. He made a noise like a slight snore.
13 Q. Let's go back to the police. You saw police get out of
14 the Land Rover, you say, or you saw police for the first
15 time when the ambulance arrived?
16 A. Uh-huh.
17 Q. Did you actually see them get out of the Land Rover or
18 not?
19 A. No, I don't recall them getting out of the Land Rover,
20 I just seen them on the street.
21 Q. Can you help us with how many you saw?
22 A. To the best of my knowledge, I seen four to six
23 officers.
24 Q. Can you recall whether any of those were women?
25 A. I think I seen one female officer.
17
1 Q. What did they do?
2 A. At that stage, the police moved towards the mob.
3 Q. Was the mob still along this line at 3 or had they moved
4 by this stage?
5 A. They had moved slightly back.
6 Q. Were they to the left of Robert Hamill as we look at
7 this or were they still --
8 A. Yes, they would have been to the left.
9 Q. Right. Did they then move them up towards West Street?
10 A. Yes, they slowly dispersed them.
11 Q. Did you see anybody taken by one of the officers and put
12 in the back of the Land Rover?
13 A. I seen one individual put in the back of the Land Rover
14 and a few moments later put back out again.
15 Q. At what stage did you see that happening? Was that
16 before the police moved these people up from the line at
17 3 or from the line?
18 A. This was after.
19 Q. When he was let out of the Land Rover, did you see
20 anybody else approach the Land Rover or approach the
21 officer that did it?
22 A. No.
23 Q. If they had, would you have seen it?
24 A. I couldn't really answer that.
25 Q. Okay. Who went in the ambulance?
18
1 A. I was in the ambulance along with Dermot McNeice. The
2 girls went along also.
3 Q. And the two men that had been on the ground presumably?
4 A. Correct, yes.
5 Q. I think a police officer came to see you a couple of
6 weeks later. Is that right?
7 A. That's correct.
8 Q. Can we look at page [03449]? I know you have seen this
9 before, but let's take you through it.
10 A. Uh-huh.
11 Q. This is a note by a Detective Constable who says he saw
12 you on 9th May. Do you remember if this was the
13 officer, DC Keys?
14 A. DC Keys spoke to me on a Friday night, yes.
15 Q. What he says is you were "spoken to by myself on the
16 evening of 9th May 1997".
17 It says a pro forma was completed and attached. Do
18 you know anything about a form being filled in?
19 A. DC Keys spoke to me in the back of a police car.
20 Q. Right, but do you know anything about a form? Did he
21 have a form with him?
22 A. I can't recall.
23 Q. I should say that if a pro forma was completed, it has
24 been lost.
25 What he goes on to say is that you left
19
1 St Patrick's Hall at about 1.30 approximately, alone,
2 stood about for five minutes waiting for a taxi:
3 "He walked off when one didn't turn up. He walked
4 off along Thomas Street alone."
5 So what he has you doing is being at
6 St Patrick's Hall, not at McKeever's, waiting for a taxi
7 and then walking up Thomas Street. What do you say
8 about that?
9 A. Only DC Keys can answer that question, not me.
10 Q. Did you tell him that?
11 A. No.
12 Q. It goes on:
13 "... stated that Robert Hamill, D and two women were
14 walking about 15 yards behind him."
15 Again, did you tell him that?
16 A. No.
17 Q. "At some stage he walked past Colin Prunty who he says
18 was alone."
19 Did you tell him that
20 A. No.
21 Q. "He walked across the Main Street towards
22 Woodhouse Street. As he was doing so, he saw about 20
23 people spaced out in small groups, the first of which
24 was near Ronnie's."
25 Did you tell him that?
20
1 A. No.
2 Q. "He was called a 'Fenian bastard'. He walked on to
3 halfway down Woodhouse Street."
4 You were sworn at in that way, were you not
5 A. Yes, I was, yes.
6 Q. But you say not on the way up?
7 A. Uh-huh.
8 Q. Then it says:
9 "When he heard 'Fenian bastards' being shouted, he
10 turned round and went back up to the top of the street."
11 Again, did you tell him that?
12 A. No.
13 Q. "He said to police who were near, 'Are you not going to
14 stop it or do anything about it?'"
15 Now, you have told us you shouted at the Land Rover
16 something like that.
17 A. Uh-huh.
18 Q. Did you tell him you had shouted at the Land Rover?
19 A. I don't know where DC Keys got this statement from.
20 Q. Do you remember telling him you shouted at the
21 Land Rover, though?
22 A. I don't recall.
23 Q. "He went over to try to stop the fighting, was kicked
24 and punched ..."
25 That's true, isn't it?
21
1 A. Yes, I was attacked, yes.
2 Q. "... and the crowd were shouting, 'Die, you Fenian
3 bastard, you'."
4 Did they shout that? Did they shout, "Die, you
5 Fenian bastard"?
6 A. I can't really recall that.
7 Q. "'This town is ours'." That sounds ...
8 A. Yes, I remember those words, "This town is ours".
9 Q. Okay. It went on to say:
10 "He will make a witness statement on Saturday,
11 10th May."
12 Did you offer to make a statement?
13 A. I did say to DC Keys that I would call down on Saturday
14 and make a statement.
15 Q. Okay. The physical description it gives there --
16 obviously, one of the problems we have about this is
17 that either DC Keys is making this up, or you have it
18 wrong, or this is a record of an interview with somebody
19 else and he has confused the names.
20 Let us see if we can make sense of this with
21 a description. Do you see the physical description
22 there:
23 "5 foot 7, short brown hair, short spiked on top
24 with light growth beard, medium build", and then
25 clothing.
22
1 Was this a description of you as of 9th May 1997?
2 A. I am not a medium build.
3 Q. What about the hair? Is that how you wore your hair
4 then?
5 A. I can't really recall.
6 Q. Okay. Clothing, is that clothing you owned at that
7 stage?
8 A. Quite possible.
9 Q. Did you go on to make a statement at the police station?
10 A. No.
11 Q. Why is that?
12 A. Because I found DC Keys very edgy and he was in a real
13 big hurry for me to make a statement. So after thinking
14 about that, I declined.
15 Q. By that stage Robert Hamill was dead, wasn't he?
16 A. He was.
17 Q. You knew that, I take it?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Were you anxious to help clear that up?
20 A. Anxious to --
21 Q. Help clear that up?
22 A. Clear what up?
23 Q. The death, who killed him.
24 A. Of course.
25 Q. Wouldn't you think it would help to make a statement?
23
1 A. No.
2 Q. Because?
3 A. I don't trust them.
4 Q. Him personally or the police generally?
5 A. The police.
6 Q. If we go to page [80509], at paragraph 65, if we can
7 highlight that, you said:
8 "The officers did not give me their names."
9 You now know that the officer who recorded what we
10 just looked at is DC Keys, but you are telling us at the
11 time you didn't know that, are you?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Then you say there:
14 "They returned a few days later, but I am not sure
15 of the date."
16 Is that right, that they came back?
17 A. Yes, they did come back.
18 Q. "They left and they called maybe a week later wanting
19 an official statement ..."
20 So three visits to you?
21 A. Correct.
22 Q. "At this point, I got confused and said that I wanted to
23 speak to my solicitor."
24 What was confusing?
25 A. Their edginess, their over-keenness to me to go down and
24
1 make a statement to them.
2 Q. Why would it confuse you that they were anxious to get
3 a statement?
4 A. Only they can answer that question.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: I am sorry. I didn't catch your answer.
6 A. Only they can answer that question.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: No, because you were asked if you could help
8 us.
9 MR UNDERWOOD: Are you saying you weren't confused or you
10 were and were anxious because they were so keen for you
11 to make a statement and you didn't trust them.
12 A. I didn't trust them, so I made a statement through my
13 solicitor.
14 Q. What was the point of making a statement to the
15 solicitor?
16 A. To help.
17 Q. Where did you think that was going to go, that
18 statement?
19 A. Helping towards the death of Robert Hamill.
20 Q. Were you expecting her to give that to the police?
21 A. Uh-huh.
22 Q. Right. So the point was you wanted to have the safety
23 of your solicitor taking the statement so you could
24 trust it?
25 A. Correct.
25
1 Q. But you expected that to go to the police to help in the
2 murder inquiry?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Can we just have a look at that statement, page [00542]?
5 If we look at the third paragraph:
6 "I saw two people lying on the ground ..."
7 The last sentence in that paragraph says:
8 "This happened so quickly that I couldn't describe
9 any of the attackers."
10 Was that right?
11 A. That's correct.
12 Q. Did you think this would help in any way in the murder
13 inquiry?
14 A. Not recognising the attackers?
15 Q. Yes.
16 A. No.
17 Q. But you did, throughout this, make it clear that you
18 thought the police were at fault in not getting out?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. So how would this help the murder inquiry, this
21 statement?
22 A. How would it help the murder inquiry? Well, if the
23 police would have done their job, there would not be
24 a murder inquiry.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: That does not answer the question. Does it?
26
1 Just answer counsel's question, please.
2 MR UNDERWOOD: How did you think this statement would help
3 find the killers?
4 A. It is not going to help, because I didn't recognise the
5 people that know them.
6 Q. I am sorry to press you on the point. How is it you
7 thought going to xxxxxxxxxxxxx and making a statement
8 was going to help find the killers?
9 A. It is something I wanted to do. It is something I felt
10 more comfortable with.
11 Q. Is it you wanted to help the murder inquiry or is it you
12 wanted to help make a complaint against the police?
13 A. I wanted to help the murder inquiry.
14 Q. Did you know that xxxxxxxxxxx had launched
15 a complaint against the police for not getting out?
16 A. No.
17 Q. Did she not tell you?
18 A. That was the only time I seen xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
19 Q. Sorry?
20 A. That was the only time I seen her.
21 Q. But she didn't tell you there was a complaint?
22 A. No.
23 MR UNDERWOOD: I have no further questions. As I say, it
24 may be possible other people will.
25 A. Right.
27
1 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr Adair?
2 Cross-examination by MR ADAIR
3 MR ADAIR: Mr Hull, I want to make it clear to you at the
4 outset that I want to suggest to you that your object
5 all along, both at the start and now, has been to
6 blacken the police and not help this Inquiry or the
7 investigation into the death of Robert Hamill.
8 Do you understand me?
9 A. That's your opinion.
10 Q. If you could call up, please, [03449], this, Mr Hull, as
11 you know, is the document that is filled out by
12 Detective Constable Keys after the conversation he had
13 with you?
14 A. Uh-huh.
15 Q. You do remember having the conversation with Mr Keys?
16 A. Uh-huh.
17 Q. It happened in the back of the car. Was he writing
18 things down?
19 A. I think he was, yes.
20 Q. Was he asking you where you had been that evening?
21 A. He was.
22 Q. What did you tell him?
23 A. I told him I was in McKeever's.
24 Q. Did you mention anything about having been at
25 St Patrick's Hall?
28
1 A. No.
2 Q. So is it your -- if you are telling us the truth --
3 A. Uh-huh.
4 Q. -- Detective Constable Keys has simply made up, for some
5 reason, an assertion by you that you were at
6 St Patrick's Hall. Have you any idea why? Can you help
7 the Inquiry as to why he might have done that on 9th May
8 of 1997?
9 A. No, I can't answer that, no.
10 Q. Even thinking -- I mean, you saw this when you made this
11 Inquiry statement. You saw this document?
12 A. Uh-huh.
13 Q. I mean, you must have thought about it since then. Can
14 you help us? Even speculating -- and I know that's very
15 often not helpful, but you must have thought, "Why on
16 earth did he make up the fact that I was at
17 St Patrick's Hall?"
18 Can you come up with any explanation?
19 A. I am sorry, but I can't come up with any explanation why
20 he done it.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Have you tried to think up why he made it up?
22 A. No.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Not even tried to think about it?
24 A. I have no idea why he done it.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: That's not what I am asking you.
29
1 Did you ever ask yourself, "Why did he do that?"
2 Did you ever ask yourself that question?
3 A. That's not something I really thought about.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Very well.
5 MR ADAIR: According to Detective Constable Keys, you also
6 told him that you left the hall alone and stood for
7 about five minutes waiting for a taxi.
8 Now, did you tell him that?
9 A. Again, no.
10 Q. Again, is that something that for some reason he has
11 made up --
12 A. Correct.
13 Q. -- if you are telling us the truth?
14 A. Correct.
15 Q. Have you any idea, in relation to that, why he would
16 have made up you standing outside St Patrick's Hall for
17 five minutes waiting for a taxi?
18 A. Again, no.
19 Q. Can you think of any possible reason why he would do
20 that?
21 A. You would need to ask him that.
22 Q. I am asking you.
23 A. Well, I am telling you I can't think of it.
24 Q. "Left St Patrick's Hall at 0130 hours."
25 Did you tell him that?
30
1 A. Again, no.
2 Q. Can you think of any reason why he would make that up --
3 A. Again, no.
4 Q. -- or where he would get it from?
5 So while you were telling him about being at
6 McKeever's pub, he is writing this down. Is that what
7 it boils down to?
8 A. That's a possibility, isn't it?
9 Q. Why? Why would he do that?
10 A. I can't answer that question.
11 Q. "Walked off when one didn't turn up. He walked off
12 along Thomas Street alone. Stated that Robert Hamill, D
13 and two women were walking about 15 yards behind him."
14 Did you tell him that?
15 A. Again, no.
16 Q. Again, is that something he has simply made up?
17 A. Quite possibly, yes.
18 Q. In relation to that statement, can you think of any
19 possible reason why he would make that up?
20 A. I have no idea why he would make that up.
21 Q. Have you not -- I mean, this is now a statement
22 concerning your description of the movements of
23 Mr Robert Hamill, D and two women. I mean, have you not
24 even thought about why he might make that up as having
25 been said by you?
31
1 A. Well, quite possibly, but there again, it is up to him
2 what he does.
3 Q. "At some stage he walked past Colin Prunty, who says was
4 alone."
5 Did you say that to him?
6 A. Again, no.
7 Q. Again, can you think of any reason why he would make
8 that up?
9 A. No.
10 Q. "He walked across the Main Street towards
11 Woodhouse Street. As he was doing so, he saw about 20
12 people spaced out in small groups, the first of which
13 was near Ronnie's."
14 Did you tell him that?
15 A. Again, no.
16 Q. Again, can you think of any reason why he would make
17 that up?
18 A. No.
19 Q. So essentially, what you are saying, if you are telling
20 us the truth today, Mr Hull, is Detective Constable Keys
21 has simply made up an account which he will say you told
22 him but you can't think of any reason why he might have
23 done that?
24 A. I don't know why he has done it. He can answer that.
25 Q. Have you not thought at all about why he would have made
32
1 up any of those statements which he puts down to you?
2 You have not even thought about it?
3 A. No.
4 Q. Why not?
5 A. Because it is lies. Why think about lies?
6 Q. Well, somebody is telling lies about you. So have you
7 not thought as to why he might be telling lies about
8 you?
9 A. That's up to him.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: That's not an answer to the question.
11 A. Well, only he can answer that question.
12 MR ADAIR: No, you can answer it. Have you thought about
13 why he would be making up lies about you?
14 A. No. Maybe he is nervous.
15 Q. The same way as he was nervous when he was talking to
16 you, and that being the reason you didn't make
17 a statement to the police about this?
18 A. I found him very edgy, yes.
19 Q. So because he is nervous, he makes up an account which
20 is totally at variance with the account you gave him?
21 A. Some people do that, don't they?
22 Q. How do they do that because they are nervous, Mr Hull?
23 A. Well, why not?
24 Q. So because somebody is nervous, they write down
25 something which is totally different from what the
33
1 person is saying?
2 A. Quite possible, isn't it?
3 Q. Are you sitting here telling this Tribunal the truth,
4 Mr Hull?
5 A. That's why I am here.
6 Q. Or are you sitting there lying?
7 A. No.
8 Q. Now, according to you, if you are right, you saw what
9 happened that night in relation to the attack on
10 Mr Hamill --
11 A. I arrived at Woodhouse Street --
12 Q. -- if you are telling us the truth.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Did you think of going to the police to tell them what
15 you had seen?
16 A. No.
17 Q. Why not?
18 A. Because there was a lot of confusion going on at the
19 time and nobody knew what to do.
20 Q. Well, what confusion is there when you have seen
21 an assault, a vicious assault by all accounts, on
22 someone you know?
23 You had seen the assault. Why would you not go to
24 the police the next morning and tell them what you had
25 seen?
34
1 A. Because I wanted to speak to somebody else.
2 Q. Why?
3 A. That's my choice.
4 Q. Yes, but why?
5 A. Like I say, that's my choice.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: That doesn't answer the question.
7 A. It does.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: It doesn't. Please answer the question.
9 A. The simple fact is I don't trust them. I have already
10 stated that.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
12 MR ADAIR: Had you a hatred for the police at that time.
13 A. At that particular time of Robert Hamill?
14 Q. Yes.
15 A. Of course.
16 Q. Before this incident, had you a hatred for the RUC?
17 A. Not really, no.
18 Q. What does "not really" mean?
19 A. No.
20 Q. Did you trust them?
21 A. Not really, no.
22 Q. Why did you not go and see someone the next morning,
23 whether it be a priest, whether it be a solicitor, and
24 tell them what you had seen the night before of this
25 attack?
35
1 A. Wasn't something that I really thought about.
2 Q. You never thought about it?
3 A. At the end of the day, there was a lot of confusion
4 there. People didn't know what to do. I had never
5 experienced anything like this before, never seen
6 anything like this before, so this is all new to me.
7 That's a mistake on my behalf, but it was confusing.
8 Q. What's confusing about going to tell somebody what you
9 had seen?
10 A. As I say, nobody knew really what to do. Well, why did
11 the police not come and see me the next day then, if
12 they knew I was there?
13 Q. When the police did come to see you, they took down
14 an account of what you told them, but you say they took
15 down on untrue account.
16 A. Correct.
17 Q. You indicated to them that you would make a statement to
18 the police on the 10th. Is that right?
19 A. I did say that, yes.
20 Q. Well, did you intend at that time to make a statement to
21 the police?
22 A. Well, after I spoke to DC Keys -- as I said earlier,
23 I found him very edgy, too forward, too keen. That's
24 when I decided not to give a statement. I would speak
25 to my solicitor.
36
1 Q. Because someone is too forward, too edgy, too keen,
2 somebody, Mr Hull, who is trying to find the murderers
3 of Robert Hamill, you decide not to make a statement to
4 them?
5 A. Like I say, I didn't trust them.
6 Q. This man, Mr Hull, you knew fine well was trying to find
7 out who killed Mr Robert Hamill, wasn't he?
8 A. Quite possibly, yes.
9 Q. What do you mean, "Quite possibly"? Was there any
10 shadow of doubt at all in your mind that he was trying
11 to find out who killed Robert Hamill?
12 A. Well, I would like to think he was.
13 Q. Then why didn't you help?
14 A. Because, as I have already stated, I didn't trust him.
15 Q. You made a statement then, eventually, in
16 xxxxxxxxxxxx's office?
17 A. Correct.
18 Q. Did she write the statement out?
19 A. She did.
20 Q. Are the words in the statement your words?
21 A. They are.
22 Q. Do I understand from you, Mr Hull, that you thought that
23 that would go to the police?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Are you amazed to find out that it didn't?
37
1 A. At the end of the day, I don't understand -- I don't
2 know. I just gave the statement. I thought the
3 statement would have been forwarded to the police to
4 help with their enquiries. That's what I thought would
5 happen.
6 Q. Did xxxxxxxxxxxxx ever contact you in relation to
7 passing that statement on to the police or not?
8 A. As I already stated, that was unfortunately the only
9 time I spoke to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.
10 Q. Are you aware that she received -- perhaps you are
11 not -- a number of requests for your statement to be
12 forwarded to the police to help with the murder inquiry?
13 A. No.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Did you ask xxxxxxxxxxxxxx or did she say
15 what was going to happen to the statement once you made
16 it?
17 A. No, she never said. That's what I say --
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Did you ask her?
19 A. No. I just assumed that's what the procedure was.
20 MR ADAIR: Was the statement not given, Mr Hull, for the
21 purposes of the complaint against the police, as opposed
22 to any desire on your part to assist with the
23 Robert Hamill Inquiry or investigation?
24 A. Repeat that again.
25 Q. You knew there had been a complaint made against the
38
1 police. Isn't that right?
2 A. I had heard something, that there was a complaint made
3 about the police, but ...
4 Q. Whom had you heard it from?
5 A. Just on the grapevine.
6 Q. Isn't that why you made a statement to xxxxxxxxxx?
7 A. I made a statement to xxxxxxxxxx to help with the
8 Robert Hamill Inquiry.
9 Q. Are you aware now that the first time that this
10 statement was ever seen by anybody in the police was in
11 October of 1998?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Are you aware of that?
14 A. No, no, no.
15 Q. When a copy of your statement and a copy of a statement
16 from Mr McNeice was sent to the Complaints and
17 Discipline Department -- if you call up page [15046],
18 please, this is the first thing -- do you see this
19 letter from xxxxxxxxxxxxx enclosing statements from
20 you and Mr McNeice?
21 A. Uh-huh.
22 Q. Do you not know that that's the first time that anyone
23 had the information contained in your statement?
24 A. That's the first time I have seen this.
25 Q. Did you -- going back to the events briefly, Mr Hull,
39
1 and I say "briefly" because I want to suggest to you
2 that nothing you say can be believed. Do you understand
3 me?
4 A. That's your opinion.
5 Q. Did you and Mr McNeice run down Woodhouse Street
6 together to the junction of Market Street?
7 A. Run down Woodhouse Street?
8 Q. Yes, run down Woodhouse Street.
9 A. Run down or run up?
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Run to the junction.
11 MR ADAIR: Did you and Mr McNeice run to the junction of
12 Woodhouse Street and Market Street?
13 A. Yes, when we heard -- we recognised the people's voices,
14 yes.
15 Q. Did you arrive there together?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Do you agree with what we anticipate Mr McNeice will
18 say, that, as far as he can recall, "the police got out
19 of the Land Rover when Colin and I arrived at the top of
20 Woodhouse Street"? Do you agree with that?
21 A. No.
22 Q. So he is wrong about that?
23 A. I think he is, yes.
24 Q. I meant to ask you one other thing, and I want to
25 apologise to you and the Panel for going back to this,
40
1 back to the record of your conversation with
2 Detective Constable Keys.
3 If we could just call that up again, please, at
4 [03449]. If you would highlight just the last half of
5 that, please. Do you see it is recorded, Mr Hull, in
6 this note about three or four lines down:
7 "When he heard 'Fenian bastards' being shouted, he
8 turned round and went back up to the top of the street."
9 That's not true either?
10 A. No.
11 Q. So that's again something he has made up?
12 A. Uh-huh.
13 Q. "At the traffic lights he saw people jumping on
14 Robert Hamill's head. He said to police who were near,
15 'Are you not going to stop it or do anything about
16 it?'."
17 Did you say that to Detective Constable Keys?
18 A. No.
19 Q. So again -- I mean, do you understand that's potentially
20 something that is detrimental to the police?
21 A. Uh-huh.
22 Q. Here you are apparently telling Detective Constable Keys
23 that you spoke to police and said, "Are you not going to
24 do anything about this?", but what you are saying is he
25 has made up something which is detrimental and damning
41
1 of the police.
2 A. Uh-huh.
3 Q. Now, can you think, in your wildest dreams, why he would
4 do that?
5 A. I can't answer that question.
6 Q. You see, Mr Hull, we know -- and I just briefly want
7 your comments on this -- from the girls who were helping
8 both D and Robert Hamill that there was no further
9 attack on either D or Robert Hamill after they went over
10 to them, but you have the crowd kicking and kicking and
11 kicking while they are lying over them.
12 Now, what do you say about that?
13 A. Well, that's -- I arrived towards the end of the
14 beating. That's what I stated.
15 Q. What you stated, Mr Hull, is that when you arrived,
16 there was a body or bodies -- I think you originally
17 said in your transcript a body -- isn't that right --
18 A. Uh-huh.
19 Q. -- over both Robert and D, which on the evidence we have
20 heard, Mr Hull, clearly is the ladies who were with
21 Robert Hamill and D. Do you understand me?
22 A. Uh-huh.
23 Q. Both of them have told -- and they were there --
24 A. Uh-huh.
25 Q. -- giving first aid and assistance. They say nothing
42
1 happened after they arrived at Robert and D.
2 What do you say about that?
3 A. As I stated, I arrived towards the end of the beating.
4 After that, just one guy made a run and I intercepted
5 him.
6 Q. We know from other evidence that the police were seen
7 trying to save the life of Robert Hamill. Now, if that
8 had happened, Mr Hull, you would have seen it?
9 A. Well, I didn't see it.
10 Q. Exactly. So you say. If it happened, if Colin Prunty
11 is right about that, why didn't you see it?
12 A. I just wasn't aware of it and didn't see it at the time.
13 I didn't see any of that, to my knowledge.
14 Q. What I am asking you is: can you proffer us any
15 explanation as to why you didn't see the police trying
16 to save the life of Robert Hamill?
17 A. Well, quite possibly because of the mayhem, the crowd at
18 the time.
19 Q. So are you accepting then that it may very well be the
20 position that the police were active on the scene trying
21 to prevent any further injury to Robert Hamill or
22 anybody else, but you missed that?
23 A. Well, that's quite possible from what you have told me
24 from the other people.
25 Q. How did you miss all these police officers?
43
1 A. As I said there a few seconds ago, because of the mayhem
2 of the crowd and the people. There was quite a large
3 crowd and there was mayhem.
4 Q. Can we conclude then, Mr Hull, that what it boils down
5 to is that it might very well be that, when you arrived
6 down, having run down or run to the junction of
7 Woodhouse Street and Market Street, it could very well
8 be, because of the mayhem, because of the chaos, that
9 the police were already out on the scene trying to
10 prevent injury to persons in Market Street? Is that
11 what it boils down to?
12 A. Well, going by what you have told me from Mr Prunty and
13 the girls, they were there before I was there, so I have
14 to accept what they say.
15 Q. So this statement which you made as your first opening
16 words to this Inquiry, that your one memory is of the
17 police doing nothing, we can totally disregard that,
18 Mr Hull, can we?
19 A. No, I still didn't see them doing anything, as I have
20 told you, but ...
21 Q. But you now accept that the police might very well have
22 been out on the street when you arrived at that junction
23 trying to prevent any injury to persons in
24 Market Street? You have accepted that?
25 A. Well, I have to go by what you have told me, and
44
1 Mr Prunty's evidence.
2 Q. So you accept, do you, Mr Hull, that your initial
3 thoughts about this may well be absolutely wrong, that
4 the police, in fact, were acting as best they could?
5 A. Well, I still didn't see them, so ...
6 Q. I understand.
7 A. That's all I can go by, my statement that I did not see
8 them.
9 Q. But you accept you could be wrong?
10 A. If Colin Prunty -- if that's his statement, he was there
11 before I was there.
12 Q. Did you actually -- at some stage, we know finally,
13 Mr Hull, you tell us that you saw police officers on the
14 road?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. But that's at a stage when the ambulance had arrived?
17 A. The ambulance arrived. At that time, things had calmed
18 down.
19 Q. I understand. You have told us that you didn't see any
20 police actually getting out of the Land Rover.
21 A. No.
22 Q. Are you absolutely sure about that?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Why did you, in your Inquiry statement, then say that
25 you saw officers getting out of the Land Rover and the
45
1 back doors were definitely swung open:
2 "I think five or six officers got out, but I can't
3 be sure of the number."
4 Why did you say that?
5 A. I can't recall that. It is quite possible that I did.
6 Q. Could you call up page [80506], please, and highlight
7 paragraph 47? I will read it to you:
8 "At that point, I saw officers getting out of the
9 Land Rover and the back doors were definitely swung
10 open. I think five or six officers got out, but I can't
11 be sure of the number. I didn't see the passenger door
12 open. I could see the back and the driver's side and
13 I think the driver's door opened, although I am not 100%
14 sure. That was the first time I had seen the police
15 officers get out of the van."
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Now, why did you say that if you didn't see it?
18 A. As I say, I'm trying my best here from my memory. This
19 is twelve years ago. I am trying my best to help. Yes,
20 that's true. I did see the Land Rover's doors open, so
21 I did.
22 Q. Did you see five or six officers getting out?
23 A. I said in my statement four to six officers, I think.
24 MR ADAIR: Thank you.
25
46
1 Cross-examination by MR McGRORY
2 MR McGRORY: If you please, Mr Chairman, I have a few minor
3 questions to ask on behalf of the family.
4 Mr Hull, if I could perhaps ask you to look once
5 again at the document [03449]. This is the only record
6 we appear to have from DC Keys as to what you might have
7 said to him. Perhaps if we could have the whole
8 document. This is called an action record print.
9 I don't actually believe it is a pro forma.
10 Perhaps I could ask you some questions about it to
11 help us to find out how close to the original note this
12 document might be.
13 Can you remember, when you were talking to DC Keys,
14 was he writing with a pen or was he typing something
15 into a computer or what?
16 A. No, he was writing with a pen.
17 Q. Can you recall, was he writing into a notebook or some
18 other type of document?
19 A. I can't really recall.
20 Q. So it would follow then that if his record was taken by
21 pen, that this is not an original record, because it is
22 typed?
23 A. He definitely wrote it by pen. This isn't what he wrote
24 out, no.
25 Q. Can you recall at all, Mr Hull, if he read back to you
47
1 what he had written?
2 A. No.
3 Q. He didn't get you to sign what he had written?
4 A. No.
5 Q. He didn't get you to read what he had written?
6 A. No.
7 MR McGRORY: I have no further questions.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
9 Cross-examination by MR MALLON
10 MR MALLON: You have indicated that you don't remember
11 Thomas Gerard Mallon talking to you.
12 A. Yes, that is correct.
13 Q. Do you know the way you have now accepted the evidence
14 of Mr Prunty, do you also think you might accept the
15 evidence of Thomas Gerard Mallon?
16 A. As I say, I just can't recall seeing him. That's all
17 I stated.
18 Q. You see, not only did he see you, but he saw Mr McNeice
19 with you.
20 A. Uh-huh.
21 Q. So he couldn't have invented that, could he?
22 A. I am not saying he did. All I am saying is I can't
23 recall.
24 Q. Would you describe yourself as stocky with thick hair,
25 dirty-fair in colour?
48
1 A. Sorry. Go ahead.
2 Q. Would that have been you?
3 A. Back then? Stocky build? No, I wouldn't class myself
4 as stocky back then, no.
5 Q. That's how he described you: thick hair, dirty-fair in
6 colour. You looked like you'd had a few drinks, eight
7 or nine pints?
8 A. Uh-huh.
9 Q. Could that have affected your recollection, your memory?
10 A. No.
11 Q. Not at all?
12 A. No.
13 Q. He then said:
14 "He asked me what was happening."
15 A. I don't recall speaking to him.
16 Q. "I had a brief chat with Colin ..."
17 A. I don't recall it.
18 Q. "... and told him not to go anywhere near the town
19 centre ..."
20 A. I don't recall it.
21 Q. "... but to go home instead."
22 A. I don't recall it.
23 Q. "I told him the police were at the corner and there were
24 lots of people in the town."
25 Do you remember speaking to him?
49
1 A. No.
2 Q. So with all of that detail, you still can't remember?
3 A. I don't recall speaking to him at all, no.
4 Q. No?
5 A. No.
6 Q. You don't remember him warning you not to go up the
7 town?
8 A. Again, no.
9 Q. You don't accept his description of you?
10 A. Tom does know me, I'm not saying he doesn't know me, but
11 the only thing I'd query is "stocky build". I wasn't
12 a stocky build then, no.
13 Q. Do you think he is inventing this as well?
14 A. I didn't say that.
15 Q. Could it be this actually is what happened?
16 A. Again, it is quite possible. I can't recall it.
17 I don't recall speaking to Tom.
18 MR MALLON: Thank you.
19 Cross-examination by MR WOLFE
20 MR WOLFE: Just one thing that I think has been missed, sir.
21 Mr Hull, you have told us you were attacked by the
22 mob.
23 A. Briefly.
24 Q. You were attacked briefly?
25 A. I was examined in the hospital and the records should be
50
1 there.
2 Q. How many attacks were you subject to?
3 A. The first one when I arrived, where I was hit on the
4 side of the head, they blind-sided me, and when I was
5 over with D.
6 Q. When you were over with Witness D, I think.
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Did you mention a third attack -- no -- two attacks?
9 A. I think I was just attacked twice.
10 Q. Would you describe the second of those attacks for us,
11 please?
12 A. It was just kicks to the body.
13 Q. Yes. How many people kicked you to the body?
14 A. Four or five.
15 Q. Were you on the ground?
16 A. No.
17 Q. Were you standing up when they kicked you to the body?
18 A. Sort of crouched, trying to protect myself.
19 Q. Were you knocked to the ground?
20 A. At any stage? No.
21 Q. Were you punched?
22 A. I was punched, when I first arrived, on the side of the
23 head.
24 Q. Yes, but at the later stage, were you punched?
25 A. Just kicks.
51
1 Q. Just kicks. Did you tell Mr McNeice about this assault
2 on you?
3 A. No. I don't think so.
4 Q. You didn't?
5 A. I don't recall, no.
6 Q. Did you tell Detective Constable Keys about this attack
7 on you?
8 A. I don't recall that either. I don't think I did.
9 Q. You tell us this morning that you travelled to the
10 hospital in an ambulance.
11 A. Uh-huh.
12 Q. How many people were in the ambulance you travelled in?
13 A. I think there were two ambulances came. I can't be 100%
14 certain.
15 Q. But the ambulance that you travelled in?
16 A. Who was there?
17 Q. Yes, who was in it?
18 A. I can't recall who was in the ambulance. I am not sure
19 if Mr McNeice was with me or the girls or whatever.
20 I can't remember.
21 Q. Can you remember whether you travelled in the ambulance?
22 A. I travelled in the ambulance, yes. That I am aware of,
23 yes.
24 Q. Could you have travelled in a taxi?
25 A. I don't think there were any taxis about at that time.
52
1 Q. Could I ask paragraph 31 of Mr Hull's statement to be
2 brought up, please?
3 THE CHAIRMAN: The page number? It is all right. It is
4 there, [80503].
5 MR WOLFE: If paragraph 31 could be highlighted, please,
6 this documents the second attack on you, Mr Hull. Do
7 you see?
8 A. Uh-huh.
9 Q. Now, it records that a crowd of six or seven jumped on
10 you. Is that right?
11 A. Uh-huh.
12 Q. Knocked you to the ground. Is that right?
13 A. I didn't actually fall to the ground. As I said, I was
14 sort of crouched over.
15 Q. So you weren't knocked to the ground?
16 A. Not really, no.
17 Q. So that's not correct?
18 A. Well, it is correct in one sense. I didn't really fall
19 to the ground, no.
20 Q. Well, it is your statement, Mr Hull.
21 A. Well, I have said what I have said, haven't I?
22 Q. Tell us if it is accurate.
23 A. It is pretty much accurate. I was attacked, yes.
24 Q. Were you knocked to the ground?
25 A. Not completely, no.
53
1 Q. Were you repeatedly kicked and punched?
2 A. A few times. I don't remember being punched, but
3 I remember the kicks going in, but it only lasted
4 briefly.
5 Q. So you weren't punched?
6 A. Quite possibly could have been, but I felt more the
7 kicks than the punches.
8 Q. But you have told us already you were not punched?
9 A. Like I said, I recall the kicks more than the punches.
10 I don't really remember being punched, but I said
11 earlier quite possibly I could have been, but I don't
12 remember being punched. I remember more kicks.
13 Q. You don't remember being punched?
14 A. I remember more kicks.
15 Q. This is the statement you made for the purposes of the
16 Inquiry within the past two years. Isn't that correct?
17 A. I am not quite sure. It could be, yes, down in Belfast.
18 Q. You go on to tell us that you did your best to protect
19 yourself while the attack lasted and then that you broke
20 free.
21 A. Uh-huh.
22 Q. Where did you go from there?
23 A. Just moved towards the top of Woodhouse Street.
24 Q. Right. What did you do when you got there?
25 A. I shook myself down. Just shook myself down, calmed
54
1 myself down. That's what I mean.
2 Q. You didn't go back across the street?
3 A. Did I go back over again? No. Just hung around, just
4 stayed within that vicinity.
5 Q. So you didn't go back across the road to help Mr Hamill?
6 A. I stayed with Robert. That's what I am saying. When
7 I went back, there was a guy made another go for Robert
8 and I intercepted him.
9 Q. Let me get the sequence right. You were assaulted by
10 being repeatedly kicked. You managed to roll yourself
11 into a ball and eventually managed to escape. Is that
12 correct?
13 A. I broke myself free, yes.
14 Q. Where did you go from there?
15 A. I moved myself back over to Woodhouse Street --
16 Q. Are you sure about that?
17 A. -- and then back over again to Robert Hamill.
18 Q. Right. So you went to Woodhouse Street?
19 A. I said I shook myself down, calmed myself down, got
20 myself together, and ...
21 Q. Then you went back to Mr Hamill?
22 A. I stayed with Mr Hamill until the ambulance arrived.
23 Q. During that time there was another attempt to attack
24 Mr Hamill. Is that correct?
25 A. One guy made a run, yes.
55
1 Q. You provide a description of him in your statement.
2 Isn't that correct? If you could call up, sir,
3 paragraph 43 of [80505].
4 Is that a description of --
5 A. He was a stocky build. He was a bit taller than me.
6 Q. Now, if that account is true, Mr Hull, why didn't you
7 give it to the police?
8 A. I couldn't recognise him. This happened so quickly.
9 Like I said, I wouldn't be well-known round Portadown to
10 any of these people at all.
11 Q. Did you tell the police anything about this prevention
12 of a further attack?
13 A. DC Keys?
14 Q. Yes.
15 A. No.
16 Q. Did you tell Mrs xxxxxxxx about it?
17 A. I can't recall if I told Mrs xxxxxxxxxx or not.
18 Q. You tell us in your statement, if I can move on to
19 paragraph 51 of [80507], that the ambulance man arrived.
20 A. Uh-huh.
21 Q. He spoke to you. You say:
22 "I am not sure if I got into the ambulance with D or
23 with Robert. I may have even got a taxi, although I am
24 not sure where I would have got a taxi from."
25 A. That's what I previously said, yes.
56
1 Q. Yes. Why the uncertainty, Mr Hull?
2 A. Because it was 12 years ago. Like I said, it was
3 a crazy night, so it was.
4 Q. Yes. I would hope that you haven't had many crazy
5 nights like that.
6 A. That's the first and hopefully the last one.
7 Q. Yes. Does the journey to the hospital, if indeed you
8 went to the hospital, not --
9 A. Well, I think you will find that there is a medical
10 record shows I was examined by a doctor so I did go to
11 the hospital.
12 Q. Does the journey not stand out in your mind?
13 A. Like I said, it was a crazy night.
14 Q. Now, when you went to see Mrs xxxxxxxxx, you told my
15 learned friend Mr Adair that you hoped to have this
16 matter, the death of Mr Hamill, fully investigated,
17 cleared up, as you told learned counsel?
18 A. Uh-huh.
19 Q. Was it your intention to tell Mrs xxxxxxxx all you knew
20 about the incident?
21 A. I just gave the statement, my account of what happened
22 that night, to the best of my knowledge.
23 Q. Did you tell her all you knew about the incident?
24 A. To the best of my knowledge, yes.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: When you say "to the best of my knowledge",
57
1 do you mean to the best of your knowledge now or at the
2 time?
3 A. To the best of my knowledge at the time.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
5 MR WOLFE: Why didn't you tell her about being with
6 Mr McNeice?
7 A. I just wanted to give my account of things. What
8 Mr McNeice done was entirely up to him.
9 Q. Did you not want to involve him for some reason?
10 A. I really didn't see much of Mr McNeice after that. So
11 I just went along and made my statement and he followed
12 suit.
13 Q. But you were aware he was present at the scene. Isn't
14 that right?
15 A. Correct, yes.
16 Q. You were also aware that Mr Prunty was present at the
17 scene?
18 A. Uh-huh.
19 Q. Did you tell Mrs xxxxxxxx about that?
20 A. I don't recall.
21 Q. You were in a position to give a description, albeit
22 a vague description, of you preventing an attack on
23 Mr Hamill?
24 A. I didn't listen -- face-wise, I don't recall what he
25 looked like.
58
1 Q. You were the closest person to him. Isn't that right?
2 A. Uh-huh.
3 Q. Are you really being truthful when you say you didn't
4 know anything more about him?
5 A. This fella that tried to attack Robert again?
6 Q. Yes.
7 A. As I say, it is 12 years ago. I am not well-known in
8 Portadown. I keep myself to myself. I didn't recognise
9 his face. I didn't recognise any of their faces.
10 I just remember he had a stocky build, but face-wise,
11 no.
12 Q. You would realise, Mr Hull, that without evidence
13 a police force cannot --
14 A. I understand that, but unfortunately I did not recognise
15 his face.
16 MR WOLFE: Very well.
17 Cross-examination by MR McCOMB
18 MR McCOMB: Just a few questions because there is a matter
19 that has already been covered.
20 May I ask about your memory of being with
21 Mr McNeice, Dermot or Vincent McNeice, that evening?
22 A. Where? In McKeever's?
23 Q. You were first of all in McKeever's. Is that right?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. You had been there for quite a while. You think you
59
1 were the last two to leave --
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. -- but might there have been a crowd of other people
4 outside or inside McKeever's?
5 A. I don't recall a crowd outside McKeever's.
6 Q. Never mind. You went up the road at Woodhouse Street
7 because you said you were going to go to Boss Hoggs with
8 Vincent?
9 A. Uh-huh.
10 Q. You don't recall meeting Mr Mallon, as you say.
11 A. I have already stated that, yes.
12 Q. Indeed. You made your way up Woodhouse Street past the
13 Royal Oak. Is that right?
14 A. Uh-huh.
15 Q. It was shut at that time?
16 A. Uh-huh.
17 Q. Where were you in relation to the entry when you first
18 heard shouting and you heard at around the same time
19 Colin Prunty's voice?
20 A. It would be in around where the High Street mall is now
21 in Portadown where High Street is, it would have been in
22 around that area.
23 Q. How far away, roughly, in terms of --
24 A. From McKeever's or --
25 Q. No, to the junction where the Land Rover was.
60
1 A. It would roughly be 100, 150 yards.
2 Q. Did you run up?
3 A. When we recognised the voices, yes, we run to help, yes.
4 Q. Vincent was still with you at that stage? The two of
5 you ran up together?
6 A. Yes, we ran up together, yes.
7 Q. There were a number of people around the Land Rover,
8 I think. Is that right?
9 A. Uh-huh.
10 Q. But you found your way past them. Isn't that so?
11 A. Yes, I could find my way past, yes.
12 Q. Did the two of you run over then to the junction or to
13 the centre of --
14 A. To the centre.
15 Q. -- the Main Street?
16 A. Uh-huh.
17 Q. Market Street?
18 A. Uh-huh.
19 Q. Now, I think -- correct me if I am wrong -- earlier this
20 morning you said in your evidence you witnessed a body,
21 as it turns out to be Mr Hamill's body, on the ground,
22 and for about six or seven seconds you saw a number of
23 people kicking him. Is that right?
24 A. Uh-huh.
25 Q. Is that, doing the best you can, a picture that you have
61
1 in your mind of what you actually yourself saw?
2 A. The picture which sticks in my mind the most regarding
3 Robert Hamill is when I was beside him and when he was
4 in a deep --
5 Q. I fully appreciate that. I don't wish to dwell on that.
6 A. Well, it is not something I like talking about.
7 Q. Just in terms of timescale, what you said earlier is
8 what you meant to say? Is that right?
9 A. Uh-huh.
10 Q. Were the girls with Robert Hamill, and, when you looked
11 over from time to time at D, were the girls with them
12 throughout that period as well?
13 A. The girls were with him over the period and I was also
14 with him.
15 Q. Perhaps we could look at 42. I am not sure if I have
16 understood this correctly. Perhaps you could help. 42
17 of your statement, [80505]:
18 "While I was with [Robert Hamill], I think
19 Vincent McNeice came over. The two girls who I'd seen
20 in the pub with him earlier might also have come over."
21 What did you mean by that?
22 A. Yes, they might have come over. Yes, they might have.
23 Q. Were they not with -- were these different girls you are
24 talking about?
25 A. No, there was two girls.
62
1 Q. Yes. Without mentioning names, might those have been E
2 and F?
3 A. I don't know these girls by name. I only know them from
4 passing in the street. I wouldn't have been friendly
5 with them.
6 Q. I am not asking you that. You must have known what
7 happened and who was involved in this. It was common
8 knowledge. It must have been certainly the talk of your
9 community for a long time.
10 A. No-one ever spoke about it.
11 Q. No-one ever spoke about it?
12 A. No, not that -- you know, I never spoke about it to
13 anybody.
14 Q. Right, but can you assist the Inquiry at all as to who
15 those two girls might have been?
16 A. I think one may be -- I am not too -- as I say, I don't
17 know the people very, very well. I think one might have
18 been the girlfriend of D and I am not too sure if the
19 other girl was a cousin.
20 MR McCOMB: We don't wish you to mention any names. I made
21 that clear to you. Thank you very much.
22 A. Thank you.
23 MR UNDERWOOD: I have no questions arising. Thank you, sir.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Probably we will take our break
25 now then.
63
1 MR UNDERWOOD: Thank you very much, Mr Hull.
2 A. Thank you.
3 (The witness withdrew)
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Just before we break off, I hear the question
5 being asked from time to time, "Might it have happened?"
6 If you think about it, that doesn't produce an answer
7 which has any meaning at all. A witness can say it did
8 or it didn't, or he can say it did or it didn't with
9 varying degrees of qualification about how confident he
10 is in his answer, but simply to say, "Might it have
11 happened?" just produces no meaningful answer. So
12 perhaps that is the sort of question which can be
13 avoided. Very well. Quarter of an hour.
14 (11.30 am)
15 (A short break)
16 (11.45 am)
17 MR UNDERWOOD: Vincent McNeice, please.
18 MR DERMOT VINCENT McNEICE (sworn)
19 Examination by MR UNDERWOOD
20 MR UNDERWOOD: Morning, Mr McNeice.
21 A. Good morning.
22 Q. My name is Underwood. I am Counsel for the Inquiry.
23 I will be asking questions to start with and most of the
24 questions.
25 Can you tell us your full names, please?
64
1 A. Dermot Vincent McNeice.
2 Q. I think you made a statement to the Inquiry. Can we get
3 that up on screen at page [80954]? If we just flick
4 through the pages of this, I will just get you to
5 identify that it is yours.
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Is that your statement?
8 A. That's right, yes.
9 Q. Is it true?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. One other I want you to look at, please, is
12 page [00544]. Is this a statement you made to
13 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Is that true?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. I want to do the best we can getting your story about
18 what happened on the night of 27th April from your
19 memory, if we can. If you can't remember something,
20 tell me. If we need to look at a statement, we will
21 look at it.
22 A. Thank you.
23 Q. On the night of the 26th/27th, were you out with
24 Colin Hull?
25 A. Yes.
65
1 Q. Are you sure you were with Mr Hull?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Because a question has arisen about whether he was in
4 McKeever's about 1.30 or whether he was in
5 St Patrick's Hall.
6 Can you help us about that?
7 A. No, he was in McKeever's.
8 Q. Did there come a point where you and he walked down from
9 McKeever's towards the junction with
10 Market Street/High Street?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Can you tell us about what time that was?
13 A. I had a right few pints in me, you know. I wouldn't
14 really be sure. It was late because the Royal Oak bar,
15 it's between McKeever's and the junction, it was closed.
16 Q. Do you know what time --
17 A. The door was closed. You know, the music and whatnot,
18 you know, it went on to 1.30 or 1.45 before you maybe
19 would have been threw out of it, you know.
20 Q. That's helpful. There is a question whether, when you
21 two were walking down or up Woodhouse Street -- I never
22 get these right -- you bumped into somebody called
23 Mr Mallon. Do you remember?
24 A. I can't remember.
25 Q. Again, you fairly told us you had a good few drinks.
66
1 Were you a bit worse for wear?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Did you see a Land Rover?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. If we can look at the standard model, please -- I don't
6 know whether you have seen this before on a screen.
7 This is a model that has been put together from
8 photographs at the time. The Land Rover has been placed
9 there. We are asking people whether they agree with
10 that's where it was on the night. Can you help us about
11 that?
12 A. Yes, that's roughly right. Is the front of it on the
13 footpath?
14 Q. Aiming that way?
15 A. I don't think it was on the footpath now, to tell you
16 the truth.
17 Q. So all of it in the road?
18 A. I think so, yes.
19 Q. It is parked at a bit of an angle there. Again, can you
20 help on that?
21 A. I wouldn't really have been able to see the angle. We
22 were directly below it.
23 Q. As you were walking down the street, did you hear
24 anything, do you remember?
25 A. Yes. It would be -- I am not sure -- I am not allowed
67
1 to ...
2 Q. You say whatever you like.
3 A. A lady was banging and screaming, you know, at the back
4 of the Land Rover.
5 Q. Uh-huh. Any other noise? Any shouting or anything like
6 that?
7 A. No, not that I am aware of. Not audible, you know.
8 Q. Okay. As you got further down the road, did you see
9 anything going on?
10 A. We were at the Royal Oak bar at this stage and
11 I heard -- I thought I recognised the girl and we went
12 up.
13 Q. When you got up to the Land Rover, was anything else
14 happening apart from the girl banging on the doors?
15 A. We noticed Robert and his mate was lying on the far side
16 of the road along Thomas Street.
17 Q. What we can do here is give you control of this and you
18 can write on this screen. So if we can have a screen
19 shot of this. Have you got a pen there? Do you see
20 that in front of you?
21 A. No bother.
22 Q. I know it is difficult, but doing the best you can --
23 this photograph is taken from just outside Eastwoods, if
24 you recall where Eastwoods was.
25 A. Yes.
68
1 Q. Doing the best you can, can you put a mark where you
2 think Robert Hamill was lying?
3 A. Roughly around this area. Oh, sorry.
4 Q. That's all right. That's a mistake. Don't worry. That
5 will be rubbed out.
6 A. You just want an X?
7 Q. An X would be good.
8 A. Just roughly. I can't say exactly.
9 Q. As best you can. Thank you. We will put a number 1
10 against that. His mate, whose name we are not using --
11 we call him D --
12 A. D.
13 Q. -- was also lying on the ground somewhere.
14 Again, doing the best you can, can you give us
15 a mark where you think that was? We will call that
16 number 2.
17 Was anybody around them?
18 A. There was a crowd. I don't know. About 30 or 40
19 people. They were, you know, up this way a bit, up
20 towards St Mark's Church.
21 Q. Can you just do a sort of scrawl, squiggle, whatever you
22 like?
23 A. Roughly, you know, but maybe a wee bit further back.
24 Q. Fine. We will call that number 3.
25 Were there any girls with the men on the ground, do
69
1 you recall?
2 A. Yes. Well, there was one girl at the Land Rover and
3 there was D's wife, I think it is now, was over with the
4 two boys on the ground.
5 Q. Did you see any police anywhere?
6 A. There was no -- no, I never seen -- just the Land Rover.
7 Q. Did you see whether there was -- sorry. I will start
8 that again. Did you see whether there was anybody
9 inside the Land Rover?
10 A. No.
11 Q. What did you do?
12 A. When we approached, me and Colin Hull approached, there
13 were two policemen -- I think actually -- I am sort of
14 80% sure one of them was a policewoman, and again 80%
15 sure I think they got out of the back of the Land Rover,
16 you know, and I think they sort of tried to apprehend
17 us, you know, continuing on up into the town centre, the
18 High Street or whatever.
19 Q. Can I tell you what one of the police officers from the
20 Land Rover says, which is that they got out of the
21 Land Rover at some point and one of them made it his
22 business to try to stop people coming down
23 Woodhouse Street to join in.
24 So what he is saying is --
25 A. What do you mean by "down"?
70
1 Q. I mean the opposite of what everybody else means,
2 I think. What he says is he made it his business to
3 stop people coming out of Woodhouse Street past the
4 Land Rover?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. So he would have been stopping you or trying to stop
7 people coming from where you came from?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. So is that consistent with what you think happened then,
10 that there was a policeman trying to stop you coming up
11 or down?
12 A. But there was nobody out of the Land Rover until we came
13 up, if you know what I mean.
14 Q. Got you. So if that's the officer we are both talking
15 about, who is the one who is trying to stop people
16 coming out of Woodhouse Street, then what you are saying
17 is he got out of the Land Rover as you approached it.
18 Is that it?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Do you think you saw a policewoman?
21 A. I think. I think there were two of them got out of it.
22 I am 80% sure one of them was a woman. I don't know why
23 it stuck in my mind, but ...
24 Q. Did you happen to see anybody being put in the back of
25 the Land Rover or being released from the back of the
71
1 Land Rover who was not a policeman?
2 A. No.
3 Q. This crowd we have now, numbered 3, that is, as it were,
4 outside Instep there, what were they doing?
5 A. They seemed to be just lined right across both
6 carriageways, you know, of the High Street.
7 Q. Did you see any police officers involved with them at
8 all?
9 A. No.
10 Q. At any stage?
11 A. No.
12 Q. All right. What did you do then? You saw all this?
13 A. We actually pushed past the two police officers and went
14 over to the two boys lying on the ground. I recognised
15 them, who they were. I put -- I took my coat off and
16 put it under D's head.
17 Q. Uh-huh. Were the crowd doing anything at that stage?
18 A. Not to my knowledge. You know, it is sort of obvious to
19 me. I wasn't really worried about them, to tell you the
20 truth.
21 Q. Good few drinks?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. All right. Did you see any other police cars?
24 A. No. There could have been, but I never seen them.
25 Q. Okay.
72
1 A. You know, I can't recall them.
2 Q. What about the ambulance? Did you see that?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Where was it? Where did it stop? Do you remember?
5 A. It would have been roughly down here somewhere.
6 I couldn't say -- as I say, I couldn't say exactly. It
7 would have been roughly there.
8 Q. All right. We will call that number 4.
9 What happened once the ambulance arrived?
10 A. It is sort of a -- it's a blur. I remember the
11 ambulance men were wearing protective -- you know, like
12 a helmet type. I remember that there, but basically
13 from then on in -- I remember being in the ambulance and
14 I remember being at the hospital and, you know,
15 I couldn't really -- there is not a big pile much more
16 I remember, you know.
17 Q. Fair enough. Were you hurt?
18 A. No.
19 Q. Do you know why you went in the ambulance?
20 A. Probably to get away from the whole thing on the street,
21 you know. You were worried about the two boys as well,
22 do you know what I mean?
23 Q. Did you know them well?
24 A. Well, I played football with D, and Robert, I knew
25 Robert a right while. I used to court Robert's sister
73
1 years ago.
2 Q. So you were worried about them.
3 Did the police approach you after the night to ask
4 you about this?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Did they want you to help them make a statement?
7 A. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I never
8 opened the door to them.
9 Q. Had you seen anything which you thought might help the
10 police?
11 A. Help the police?
12 Q. Catch the murderers.
13 A. No, not really. I couldn't have recognised any of the,
14 you know, crowd, if that's what you are saying, no.
15 Q. Fair enough. Can I take you to page [00544]? This
16 statement you made to xxxxxxxxxxxx. Why did you make
17 it?
18 A. Why did I make it?
19 Q. Uh-huh.
20 A. Because the police had called maybe five, six times from
21 what I had heard now at the door and I didn't want to
22 speak to them. I didn't trust them, basically.
23 Q. Right, but if you didn't have anything to say which
24 would help solve the murder, why did you need to make
25 a statement at all, do you think?
74
1 A. Because I sat looking at it and watched it happen. That
2 was my version of the ...
3 Q. What did you think would happen to this statement?
4 A. Probably a complaint would have been made and that would
5 have been as far as it went.
6 Q. We know that around 6th May xxxxxxxxxxxx lodged
7 a complaint that the police had not got out of the
8 Land Rover.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Did you know about that complaint?
11 A. No. I think xxxxxxxxxxxxx, that day when we made the
12 statement, she sort of said that's probably what would
13 happen, if you know what I mean.
14 Q. If you look at the last paragraph of this, you say:
15 "I couldn't identify anyone who was attacking the
16 boys, but I can say for definite that the RUC would have
17 seen what was going on and made no effort to give any
18 assistance to the injured men."
19 Now, just looking at that, from what you tell us
20 that you can recall of all this, by the time you arrived
21 the assaults were over, weren't they?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. So what did you mean by "no effort to give any
24 assistance". Are you talking there about first aid?
25 A. Not just first aid. Why weren't they out of the
75
1 Land Rover, you know? Why were they sitting in the
2 Land Rover at Woodhouse Street 70 or 80 yards away from
3 it?
4 Q. For all you knew, they could have got out and back in
5 again by the time you arrived.
6 A. They could have done, you know, but ...
7 Q. So all you could --
8 A. D's sister -- is it sister-in-law -- was banging on the
9 back of the Land Rover. You know what I mean? It
10 didn't seem they had got out at all. You know what
11 I mean? I never seen them out of the Land Rover until
12 we arrived at the top of Woodhouse Street.
13 Q. Did you actually see anybody in the Land Rover when you
14 were going past it?
15 A. No, because you can't see into them.
16 MR UNDERWOOD: All right. Thank you very much. Some other
17 people may ask you questions.
18 Cross-examination by MR ADAIR
19 MR ADAIR: Mr McNeice, if I may just encapsulate you coming
20 up Woodhouse Street, you and Colin, do you run or walk
21 to the junction after you hear the noise?
22 A. We run up probably.
23 Q. Do you both arrive at the junction at or about the same
24 time?
25 A. I would say roughly the same time probably, yes.
76
1 Q. As you approach the junction, you see -- you are aware
2 of police officers?
3 A. Getting out of the Land Rover as we approached it, yes.
4 Q. Was that out of the back or out of the front?
5 A. Out of the back, I think.
6 Q. Pardon?
7 A. I think it was out of the back.
8 Q. That was two officers?
9 A. Two officers.
10 Q. One of whom you think for some -- I think you say you
11 are 80% sure was a woman?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. There was certainly a policewoman there at some stage,
14 we know.
15 Was there a policewoman out of the Land Rover, do
16 you think, when you arrived at the junction?
17 A. Yes, I think that was one of the two officers got out of
18 the back of the Land Rover.
19 As I say, I am not 100%, but for some reason, in my
20 head there was a woman.
21 Q. I understand. At that stage the attack is over, as you
22 have told us?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. A police officer tried to prevent you and Colin getting
25 involved. Isn't that right?
77
1 A. What, in the --
2 Q. He tried to prevent you crossing over to where the crowd
3 were?
4 A. No, where the injured parties were.
5 Q. And where the crowd was?
6 A. Probably, aye, yes.
7 Q. But you managed to make your way past them, as
8 I understand?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Did Colin Hull make his way past as well?
11 A. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. He could have done.
12 I can't remember even Colin being with the two boys.
13 Q. Okay. Did you see or were you aware of any other
14 assault occurring after you arrived?
15 A. No. I can't remember.
16 Q. When you say you can't remember --
17 A. I can't remember any other assault.
18 Q. If you had seen it, you would have remembered it?
19 A. If I had seen it, I would have remembered it, yes.
20 Q. Can the Panel take it that no further assault occurred
21 after you and Colin Hull arrived at the junction, as far
22 as you are concerned?
23 A. As far as I am concerned, yes, I think. I can't
24 remember any other assaults anyway, no.
25 Q. At the risk of repeating myself, Mr McNeice, if there
78
1 had been, you would remember them?
2 A. Probably.
3 Q. You didn't see any police officers in the Land Rover as
4 you approached it?
5 A. It's a bullet-proof vehicle made of steel. You can't
6 see into them.
7 Q. Well, there are side windows at the front, Mr McNeice.
8 A. I don't know. I wasn't looking.
9 Q. Can we take it then you did not see any police officers
10 actually in the Land Rover as you approached the
11 junction?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Equally, as you have told us, in fairness to you, you
14 didn't see any police officers over where D and
15 Mr Hamill were and where the crowd were?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Is it your recollection then that, at that stage, the
18 girls were with D and with Robert --
19 A. One of the --
20 Q. -- aiding them, giving them some first aid, basically?
21 A. One of the girls, when we arrived at the top of
22 Woodhouse Street, was at the back of the Land Rover.
23 Q. Who was that? Don't give us a name, in case -- is it
24 one of the witnesses, do we know, that's under
25 a codename?
79
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Do you know the codename?
3 A. No. All I have is D.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: The names can be written down with the code.
5 He can look at that and just give us the codename.
6 MR ADAIR: I wonder, would you do that and tell us? Is it
7 possible for the ... thank you.
8 A. It was E.
9 Q. Witness E. Thank you. Who, then, were the girls that
10 were with -- who was with D?
11 A. F.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: At this time, when E was at the back of the
13 Land Rover?
14 A. Yes.
15 MR ADAIR: Who was with Robert?
16 A. Well, F was sort of with the two of them, you know.
17 Q. So there was only one girl --
18 A. Several yards apart.
19 Q. At that stage, there was one girl dealing with trying to
20 help both?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Right. Did you see the police get what we now know are
23 the Protestants who had carried out the attack back away
24 up the street towards the church?
25 A. Not that I remember.
80
1 Q. Well, you did see the police out on the street.
2 A. Those two officers. That's the only two officers
3 I recall.
4 Q. Right. I am not going to ask you might there have been
5 other officers out, but what I am going to ask you is,
6 could it be that due to your concern -- and obviously,
7 I presume, you were helping with others -- there were
8 other officers out in the street and you simply didn't
9 see them?
10 A. There could have been, yes.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: By the time you got to the junction, the
12 Protestants were already more or less in this line?
13 A. Yes. It seemed to be straggled, you know, right
14 across -- there are two roads and it goes up and down.
15 MR ADAIR: But for whatever reason, there was certainly no
16 further attack after you had arrived at the junction on
17 either D or Mr Hamill or indeed anybody else from the
18 Nationalist or Catholic community.
19 A. Well, I don't remember any if there was.
20 Q. You made a statement to xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Did you think
21 about going to the police to give them a statement about
22 what you had seen?
23 A. No.
24 Q. Why was that?
25 A. It wouldn't have went any further probably.
81
1 Q. Pardon? It what?
2 A. It wouldn't have went any further, because what I --
3 Q. You knew, Mr McNeice, that the police were after you and
4 after you and after you for a statement, weren't they?
5 And you knew that the police who were after you for
6 a statement were investigating this attack on
7 Robert Hamill. Isn't that right?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Did you not want to help with the investigation into
10 Robert's injuries and subsequent death?
11 A. I did, yes.
12 Q. Well, why, then, didn't you give them a statement?
13 A. I didn't trust them.
14 Q. So you simply would not give the police a statement
15 concerning something you had seen, an attack on Robert,
16 because you didn't trust them?
17 A. I went to Ms xxxxxxxx, because I knew she wouldn't be
18 afraid to make the complaint against them.
19 Q. I am not talking about the complaint, Mr McNeice. I am
20 talking about the investigation into the death of
21 Robert Hamill.
22 Why would you not make a statement concerning that
23 investigation?
24 A. Basically, I didn't want to have nothing to do with the
25 police.
82
1 Q. Pardon?
2 A. I did not want to have anything to do with the police.
3 Q. So the statement you made to xxxxxxxxxxxxxx was really
4 concerning the complaint against the police as opposed
5 to trying to give any assistance to the investigation
6 into Mr Hamill's murder. Isn't that right?
7 A. I wouldn't say that, no.
8 Q. Well, did you have some discussion with her about
9 whether your statement would be sent to the police?
10 A. Well, obviously, if she was going to make a complaint,
11 I would say the police would get a hold of my statement.
12 It would eventually come to the police, if you know what
13 I mean.
14 Q. About the complaint?
15 A. No, about the attack.
16 Q. Well, did you know that nobody knew about your statement
17 until October of the following year?
18 A. I didn't know that.
19 Q. Pardon?
20 A. I didn't know that.
21 Q. Can you remember how many times it was that the police
22 actually called or phoned or contacted you about making
23 a statement?
24 A. I don't know, because I would have been out working,
25 I would say, all of the time. I just seen them at the
83
1 door twice. Neighbours were able to tell me they had
2 been, you know.
3 Q. I think in your Inquiry statement at paragraph 19 you
4 tell us that it was probably five or six times the
5 police had called looking for a statement?
6 A. Well, they were calling at the door and I take it that's
7 what it was for, but I wasn't there.
8 MR ADAIR: Yes. Thank you.
9 MR McGRORY: I have no questions, sir.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr Mallon.
11 Cross-examination by MR MALLON
12 MR MALLON: When you got up to the police Land Rover and the
13 police officer tried to stop you, do you remember what
14 that police officer looked like?
15 A. No.
16 Q. Did you speak to him?
17 A. No.
18 Q. Were you slurring your words when you were talking at
19 this time, because, as you said, you had a lot of drink
20 on you?
21 A. I could have been. Yes, I had a lot of drink.
22 Q. Was he trying to push you back for your benefit?
23 A. I'm not sure. I don't know -- he could have been.
24 Q. Yes. So then you pushed past him?
25 A. Yes.
84
1 Q. Did this police officer have a rifle in his hand or did
2 he have any weapon such as a baton in his hand?
3 A. I can't remember. I honestly can't remember.
4 Q. Was he rough with you or did he try to persuade you to
5 go back?
6 A. Well, he wouldn't have been rough if I could have got
7 past him.
8 Q. So he was trying to be persuasive. He was not being
9 violent to you?
10 A. No.
11 Q. You were a Catholic. This was a man you didn't trust?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Yet he was polite to you, wasn't he?
14 A. I don't know whether he was polite.
15 Q. Well, he was certainly not aggressive to you, was he?
16 A. You mean beating me, like, with a baton, or ...
17 Q. There are lots of ways with aggression. Firstly, was he
18 firm, strong, belligerent, any of those words?
19 A. I don't know whether he would have been any of them.
20 I was able to get past him anyway.
21 Q. Yes. You completely disregarded him?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Then you went to one of the people on the ground. There
24 was no attack when you were there?
25 A. No.
85
1 Q. Were you physically attacked by a Protestant mob at all?
2 A. No.
3 Q. But you were a Catholic. You were protecting
4 a Catholic, and we have heard there were bottles flying,
5 there was abuse and all sorts of things raining round
6 and yet you were perfectly safe?
7 A. Yes. I wasn't attacked anyway.
8 Q. Was that because of the police presence?
9 A. What police presence?
10 Q. Well, the police presence that you had walked past, that
11 you had completely disregarded, who were trying to
12 secure the scene to stop people rushing into it?
13 THE CHAIRMAN: That's really comment, isn't it, Mr Mallon?
14 MR MALLON: I am sorry.
15 The police presence that you had disregarded --
16 THE CHAIRMAN: I am sorry. You are going on with the same
17 question. It is comment.
18 MR MALLON: Yes, I beg your pardon.
19 A. Maybe the crowd had realised they had already done the
20 damage. Do you know what I mean? There were two boys
21 lying on the ground, out cold.
22 Q. Was it possible?
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Sorry, was what possible?
24 MR MALLON: Was it possible, when you went to the
25 Land Rover, that the Land Rover, in fact, was empty --
86
1 A. No.
2 Q. -- and that the police officers were there?
3 A. No.
4 Q. When you went to the Land Rover --
5 A. I am saying categorically no.
6 Q. What police officers did you see?
7 A. Two police officers got out of the Land Rover.
8 Q. Two police officers, one a woman?
9 A. I am 80% sure one of them was a woman.
10 Q. There were four police officers. Where were the other
11 two?
12 A. I never seen them.
13 Q. You had passed one to get to the Land Rover, didn't you?
14 A. Passed one of the ones that got out of the back of it.
15 Q. One of the ones that got out of the back of the
16 Land Rover?
17 A. Yes.
18 MR MALLON: Thank you.
19 MR WOLFE: Two brief points, Mr McNeice, if I may.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
21 Cross-examination by MR WOLFE
22 MR WOLFE: I just want to check I picked you up correctly.
23 My learned friend Mr Adair asked you about the number of
24 attempts the police made to try to make contact with
25 you. They called at your door.
87
1 Did I pick you up rightly when you said you were not
2 there when they called at your door five or six times?
3 A. I was there a couple of times. Two of the times I was
4 there and I never opened the door, and I was alerted by
5 neighbours, you know, who had seen them.
6 Q. Yes. So when you told us a minute or two ago that you
7 weren't there, that is incorrect? You were there?
8 A. Oh, no. The other times -- two of the times I was
9 there.
10 Q. You were there two times --
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. -- and not the other four times?
13 A. The other four or five, whatever, however many it was.
14 Q. You wouldn't open the door to the police?
15 A. No.
16 Q. You went to Mrs xxxxxxx's office on 19th May -- isn't
17 that correct -- to make a statement?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. That was three weeks after the attack. You obviously
20 knew by that stage that the attack had ended in tragedy?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Why did you delay for so long before going to
23 Mrs xxxxxxxxxxx?
24 A. I think at that time there were other statements made to
25 Ms xxxxxxxxxxxx as well. I just didn't want to deal with the
88
1 police at all.
2 Q. Leave the police to one side. Would you agree that
3 three weeks after the incident represents something of
4 a delay before approaching Mrs xxxxxxxxxx?
5 A. Yes, it probably is, if you say so, yes.
6 Q. Was it your purpose in going to Mrs xxxxxxxxxx to give her
7 all of the information you had at your disposal?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Was it also your intention that Mrs xxxxxxxxxx supply that
10 information through her office to the police?
11 A. I sort of figured out they would eventually get the
12 information if she was making a complaint.
13 Q. But was it your desire, your intention, that the police
14 would get this information?
15 A. I wanted a court to get my information.
16 Q. Well, let me ask you the question this way: was it your
17 intention that the death of Mr Hamill would be
18 thoroughly investigated?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And, whether you liked it or not, the only organisation
21 with responsibility for investigating violent deaths at
22 that time in Northern Ireland was the Royal Ulster
23 Constabulary?
24 A. Well, I let Ms xxxxxxxxx, you know, decide what to do with
25 my statement.
89
1 Q. Did you give her any instructions?
2 A. No.
3 Q. So you didn't tell her to disclose that to the police?
4 A. No. I left that to her discretion.
5 Q. To her discretion?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. So would you -- well ...
8 As I say, three weeks before you went to
9 Mrs xxxxxxxxx's office. What triggered your going to
10 Mrs xxxxxxxx? Were you asked to go or did you decide of
11 your own volition? How did that come about?
12 A. I had heard Ms xxxxxxxxxx was handling Robert's case.
13 Q. Right. Is that on the community grapevine as such?
14 A. Yes, it was, yes.
15 Q. Did somebody suggest to you that you should go to
16 Mrs xxxxxxxx's office?
17 A. No, I wasn't prompted.
18 Q. You weren't prompted?
19 A. No.
20 Q. So between 27th April and 19th May, did you have any
21 discussions with, for example, the Hamill family?
22 A. No.
23 Q. Did you have any discussions with Mr Hull?
24 A. No.
25 Q. Any discussions with Mr Prunty?
90
1 A. No.
2 Q. Did you --
3 A. I could have had a pint with him, or two. It could have
4 come up in a bar in a conversation, you know, the course
5 of action which I took by going to Ms xxxxxxxxx. I don't
6 think it was ever brought up.
7 Q. That's what I am anxious to explore with you. After
8 your experiences of 26th/27th April, three weeks pass
9 before you go to see Mrs xxxxxxxx.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Did you discuss the incident at any time with anybody
12 before going to see Mrs xxxxxxxxxx?
13 A. My family, my own father, probably a couple of close
14 friends.
15 Q. Did they tell you that Mrs xxxxxxxxx was, if you like,
16 collating the evidence from the community?
17 A. It just sort of came down she was looking after the
18 case, you know.
19 Q. Yes. Well, in terms of your reluctance to go to the
20 police, you said it was born out of a distrust.
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. In your witness statement you tell us that you had
23 experience of difficulties in Portadown at various
24 locations at or about that time?
25 A. Yes.
91
[SECTION REDACTED]
21 MR WOLFE: Thank you.
22 MR UNDERWOOD: No questions arising. Thank you.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
24 MR UNDERWOOD: Thank you.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: You can leave now.
92
1 A. Right.
2 (The witness withdrew)
3 MR UNDERWOOD: Sir, we have four more witnesses slated for
4 today. The first of those arrives at 1.30. May I ask
5 for an early interval?
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. We will break off now until 1.30.
7 (12.20 pm)
8 (The luncheon adjournment)
9 (In Camera Session)
10 (1.55 pm)
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr Underwood?
12 MR UNDERWOOD: I hope that Ms Beverley Irwin is here.
13 I call her.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
15 MS BEVERLEY JEAN IRWIN (sworn)
16 Examination by MR UNDERWOOD
17 MR UNDERWOOD: Miss Irwin, good afternoon.
18 A. Hi!
19 Q. My name is Underwood. I am Counsel to the Inquiry and
20 I will be asking questions, at least in the first place.
21 A. Okay.
22 Q. It may be some people will ask you some follow-up
23 questions after that.
24 Can I ask you your full names, first of all?
25 A. Beverley Jean Irwin.
93
1 Q. Thank you.
2 Can we have page [80513] on the screen, please?
3 What I am showing you here is a draft witness statement,
4 and what I want to ask you about is provenance.
5 Firstly, I think you were interviewed by the
6 Inquiry, were you?
7 A. I think so, a few years ago.
8 Q. That's right, and you had your solicitor present during
9 that?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Secondly, I think a copy of the transcript of that
12 interview was then provided to you and to your
13 solicitor. Is that right?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. You had the opportunity of going through it with your
16 solicitor to check its accuracy?
17 A. I read through it myself.
18 Q. Thirdly, this draft statement, which was then compiled
19 from that transcript, was provided to you. Is that
20 right?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. You have had the opportunity to read through that --
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. -- and go it through it with your solicitor?
25 A. Yes.
94
1 Q. Is it accurate?
2 A. There are some bits of it I am not sure of.
3 Q. Would you like to tell us which bits?
4 A. Particularly the thing that springs to mind is that
5 I thought I seen a crowd of 50, which I am not sure.
6 Q. All right. Is that the reason why you haven't signed
7 it?
8 A. I never signed anything, because -- are you speaking
9 about the first time I was speaking to the police or the
10 second statement?
11 Q. I am talking about this one here.
12 A. I didn't think I had to sign anything.
13 Q. Right. Are you telling us that you have never been
14 asked to sign this?
15 A. Honestly, I can't remember at this stage. I think it
16 maybe says at the end of it that I had been unwell for
17 a number of years, so ...
18 Q. I see. All right. Have you had a chance to read
19 through it again today?
20 A. No. I read it last night.
21 Q. Can you take us to the part that you think you are
22 unsure about?
23 A. I don't know what page it is on. It just goes through
24 and it asks how many people I thought I seen at the
25 bottom of the street.
95
1 Q. All right. If we just flick through it, perhaps
2 paragraph 7.
3 A. Yes. I think at that stage I was asked -- I had seen
4 a crowd and I was asked how many people and I said I
5 didn't know. There was just a lot going on. I was
6 asked, "Was there 30, 40, 50 people?" and I said
7 "I don't know". I said, "Maybe 50 people. I don't
8 know".
9 Q. Is that your only concern about this statement?
10 A. I think so, yes.
11 Q. All right. Apart from that, we can take it that this is
12 accurate, can we?
13 A. I think.
14 Q. I need to ask you formally, when you were interviewed
15 and gave the answers that you gave in the transcript --
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. -- were you telling the truth?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Thank you. I want to ask you about your memory of the
20 events.
21 A. Okay.
22 Q. You can tell us in your own words what you do and don't
23 remember now.
24 A. Okay.
25 Q. I think you were working in Jamesons.
96
1 A. That's right.
2 Q. We are interested in 26th and 27th April 1997.
3 A. Okay.
4 Q. I think it might help if I showed you a photograph taken
5 from the outside of the front of Jamesons?
6 A. Okay.
7 Q. If we go to the photograph album 3, and the second page,
8 the very final photograph, 00263.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. It is not square on obviously, but can you help us about
11 which doors belong to Jamesons and which doors belong to
12 the flats above?
13 A. Yes. This is the flat.
14 Q. Sorry, I need to do something else so everybody else can
15 make sense of what you are doing. We call it a screen
16 shot. You can have control of it. If you can have
17 that, there is a white pen in front of you which is
18 deliberately designed to write on this computer screen,
19 believe it or not.
20 A. Right.
21 Q. If you can mark the door you are talking about.
22 A. This is the flat.
23 Q. We will call that number 1.
24 A. Okay.
25 Q. Did that lead into Jamesons at all?
97
1 A. No. That led to two flats up above.
2 Q. Thank you. Are those flats A and B, do you know?
3 A. I'm not sure if they are -- I take it they are A and B.
4 They are either A and B or C and D, but I think it is A
5 and B.
6 Q. What about the double doors next? What are they?
7 A. They are double doors and a shutter into the main --
8 into the bar.
9 Q. If we call those number 2, just for the purpose of the
10 record here.
11 A. Okay.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Then just along after the two windows, there
13 is another door --
14 A. This door here.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: -- corresponding to the first door; to the
16 flats, in other words?
17 A. No. That's the door there. Sorry. That's a door and
18 then beside it there is another door. I think that's
19 flats C and D.
20 This first door, that's what we call a side door
21 going into the bar. It brings you into the main bar.
22 MR UNDERWOOD: So if we can label that next door number 3
23 and the final door number 4.
24 A. Then there is another set of doors.
25 Q. Hold still. Let the technology catch up with us.
98
1 A. Okay.
2 Q. All right. Before we go on to the other doors, can
3 I ask, the ones we have labelled number 2, the double
4 doors, do they go straight into the bar?
5 A. Yes, straight into the bar.
6 Q. Number 3, does that go into a passageway and then into
7 the bar or what?
8 A. It is just a wee hallway and then into the bar.
9 Q. Number 4 has nothing to do with the bar at all?
10 A. No, it is up to two more sets of flats.
11 Q. But there are more doors as well, are there?
12 A. Yes, and we call these the back doors, although they are
13 on the street, but that's where the deliveries came in.
14 They are here somewhere, just see here.
15 Q. In what looked like the next building?
16 A. Yes. There is a hallway -- there is two shops there and
17 there is a hallway runs up the back of the shops and
18 store rooms.
19 Q. Right. So we will call that number 4, please --
20 sorry -- number 5. While we are on this, can you tell
21 me which, if any, of these doors had shutters over them
22 in 1997?
23 A. Number 2 would have had the shutters already pulled down
24 and number 5, I was up -- I went up to close those doors
25 and pull the shutter down.
99
1 Q. Sorry. It is my fault. I didn't make the question
2 clear enough.
3 Which of those doors had shutters, never mind
4 whether they were up or down?
5 A. Oh, right. Number 2 and 5 had shutters.
6 Q. I want to ask how they were operated. Number 2, were
7 they electric or manual?
8 A. Number 2 are used by a keypad just outside on the wall.
9 You put the key in, turn it and come back in, and the
10 door comes down.
11 Q. Right. Number 5?
12 A. Number 5, they are a shutter and then you walk into
13 a hallway and there is a set of double doors. Between
14 where the shutter and the double doors are there is
15 a button that you have to hold for the shutter to come
16 down.
17 Q. Almost but not quite on to the sheet to shut them?
18 A. Well, you are level with -- yes, you are level with the
19 shutter door as you are closing them.
20 Q. What was the habit for people who were closing them?
21 Did they do that from inside or did they actually walk
22 out into the street?
23 A. No, you done it from the inside, although you were left
24 then in between the shutter that was coming down and the
25 double doors were in behind you and you were holding
100
1 a button and you had to keep a hold of the button while
2 the shutter ...
3 Q. All right. Can I now ask you how good your memory is
4 about the night of 26th/27th April 1997?
5 A. I can remember part of it. I guess what I would say
6 would be the scarier bits.
7 Q. The scary bit?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Let's talk about that.
10 A. Okay.
11 Q. I want to know, first of all, please, what first made
12 you aware there was something unusual going on?
13 A. Julie and I had -- the other girl that worked in the bar
14 with me had went up the back alleyway to door number 5
15 and I had put my hand on the doors to open them and to
16 put the shutter down. I just put my hand on the door
17 and opened the door a few inches and I heard somebody
18 shouting just outside the door, "F***ing orange B".
19 I thought they were shouting at me. That's what
20 frightened me.
21 Q. The "Julie" was Julie Sherwood, I take it?
22 A. Yes. So she was coming up behind me wheeling a bottle
23 bin.
24 Q. Can you help us what time that might have been? Rather,
25 can you help us what time it was, not that it might have
101
1 been?
2 A. Everybody was out and we were cleaning up. Everybody
3 else was cleaning up and I had been cashing up. 1.30,
4 because the bar was closed. There was only four of us
5 left. So I reckon in around 1.30.
6 Q. How firm are you about that? Could it have been
7 ten minutes either side or are you clear it was 1.30?
8 Because it is important for the Panel to try to get
9 a time line, if you like.
10 A. No, I'm -- I can't -- no, it would be dishonest of me to
11 say I know for sure it was 1.30 exactly, but it was near
12 1.30. It was very near 1.30.
13 Q. Okay. So you hear people swearing. You think it is at
14 you.
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Could you gauge from that how many people you thought
17 were making the noise?
18 A. I sort of froze and said, "Julie, go and get Stephen"
19 and I watched the space in the door because I thought
20 they had seen me or heard me pushing the door open.
21 Then I counted maybe four or five people passing.
22 Q. Uh-huh. I am so sorry.
23 A. No, that's all right.
24 Q. Did you see whether they were men or women?
25 A. I knew -- I don't know why -- there was a couple of
102
1 women and a couple of men, two or three men.
2 Q. Were they on your side of the road or in the middle or
3 the other side?
4 A. No, they seemed to be walking down the middle of the
5 road. They weren't on the footpath. I know that much.
6 Q. What sort of speed were they moving at? Was this sort
7 of ordinary walking pace or were they running or what?
8 A. No, they didn't seem to be running.
9 Q. You realised they were not shouting at you at some point
10 then?
11 A. Yes, because they had passed the door then, but I didn't
12 move until Stephen came up.
13 Q. That's Stephen Thornbury?
14 A. Yes. I realised and I think I said to Stephen then,
15 "I thought they were shouting at me. I thought they had
16 seen me at the door", but obviously they had walked past
17 and I had watched just because I sort of was froze.
18 Q. You told us earlier on you remember the scary parts.
19 Was this scary?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Had this occurred to you, or had anything like this
22 occurred to you, before working there?
23 A. No, no.
24 Q. Did you hear anybody else shouting? For example,
25 anybody they might have been shouting at shouting back
103
1 to them?
2 A. No. I am not sure at the time if I had heard someone
3 with them saying not to be shouting or if I heard that
4 later on, but at some stage somebody who was in that
5 group was telling somebody who was shouting not to be
6 shouting.
7 Q. Uh-huh. You think that might have been then or it might
8 have been later on that you heard that?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. I will push your memory as far as I can. You tell me if
11 I go too far.
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Whenever that occurred, do you think it was a man or
14 a woman who was doing the --
15 A. A man.
16 Q. Sorry, I should finish that.
17 A. There was an older man, I think, in the group.
18 Q. You describe later on that when you later saw a group,
19 you saw an older man, and we will come to that.
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. What did you then do? What then happened?
22 A. The shutter was put down. Stephen was with me.
23 I really don't know if I held the button or Stephen held
24 the button to put the shutter down, but the shutter was
25 put down.
104
1 THE CHAIRMAN: Can I just go back? Was it a man or a woman
2 who was shouting or telling someone else not to shout?
3 A. No, I think that was a man.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: A man saying "Don't shout"?
5 A. I think it was the older man. I don't know. I am not
6 sure if I am thinking that was the older man or -- this
7 is where -- I do remember someone in their group
8 shouting, and I took it to be the older man. I don't
9 know if I have heard him shout that going down the
10 street or I have seen and heard it at the bottom of the
11 street.
12 MR UNDERWOOD: I am sure it is my fault. We are getting
13 slightly distracted between two events. Let me just go
14 back.
15 When you heard people shouting in the first place --
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. -- was it just one person shouting or what?
18 A. Yes. No, it was only one person I think.
19 Q. There came a point when you heard somebody else in and
20 around that group trying to stop him?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. But you are not clear about whether that was then or a
23 bit later on?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Do I gather from an earlier answer you gave us that by
105
1 that stage the shutters at number 2 were already shut?
2 A. They were already down.
3 Q. What did you do then?
4 A. I would have went into the back storeroom and cashed up.
5 Q. All right. Did anything else happen then?
6 A. No. I would have been up there maybe for in around
7 20 minutes, because I would have cashed the tills and
8 checked the floats.
9 Q. Right. Again, because of the need for the Panel to try
10 to get a timescale for all of this --
11 A. The time.
12 Q. -- from as many witnesses as they can, I am going to
13 press you as hard as I can about the 20 minutes.
14 Are you telling us that because that's what it
15 normally takes you to do those tasks?
16 A. Yes, yes.
17 Q. All right. What did you do after that?
18 A. I came down into the bar and there was no-one in the
19 bar.
20 Q. Relative to the picture we are looking at here, where
21 was the bar? Was it just behind the doors at number 2?
22 A. Behind the two larger windows.
23 Q. Behind the two larger windows?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Right. So you went into the bar, nobody there. Was
106
1 there anything going on outside at that stage?
2 A. I think I might have went -- I think that's when I went
3 to the door to see if maybe they had went to the door,
4 the rest of the bar staff.
5 Q. When you say "went to the door", do you mean number 2 or
6 which?
7 A. Number 3.
8 Q. Could you see out from the door number 3 or did you have
9 to open it?
10 A. No, I opened it and went on to the street.
11 Q. Right. What was going on?
12 A. There was just a lot going on, a lot of running about
13 and shouting, and, again, I come to the bit then that
14 scared me or upset me the most was there was some girl
15 crying and shouting for help.
16 Q. If we look -- we can look at a night model so that we
17 can get some sort of impression of how it might have
18 seemed. This is -- if we twist round to the right
19 a bit, we can see -- we can move this all the way round
20 and look down Thomas Street or up Thomas Street. If we
21 continue going round, you can see this, as it were, is
22 taken from a point just outside Eastwoods.
23 Now, if we go back to the left, please, and stop it
24 around here, can you give us any idea where the people
25 were that you saw? Again, if you want it moved round to
107
1 the left or right, we can.
2 A. Move it more looking down Thomas Street.
3 Q. The other way?
4 A. No, the other way, looking down on to the Main Street.
5 Q. Right. I will get my ups and downs right in the end.
6 Tell us where to stop it.
7 A. You can stop it. I am not really sure. It is not --
8 Q. Again, if we can give you control of this and do
9 a screen shot, we can allow you to mark it.
10 A. It seems to be looking from the other side, but if I was
11 to say where the man was lying, it would have been maybe
12 here somewhere.
13 Q. Right. Now we obviously had this discussion before when
14 I asked you about the paragraph in your statement which
15 gave a number.
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Doing your best, how many people do you think you saw?
18 A. I really don't know. Maybe 20, 20-odd. I'm not sure
19 because there was like scuffles going on and people were
20 running about.
21 Q. All right. So that was the situation, was it, chaotic,
22 scuffles --
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. -- people running about?
25 A. Yes.
108
1 Q. Anything else? Any fighting rather than just scuffling?
2 A. No, I never actually seen fighting. It seemed people
3 were -- just there was a lot going on.
4 Q. All right. We have a Land Rover positioned in this
5 model. Did you see a Land Rover on the night?
6 A. Yes, I think I seen a Land Rover. It's just that that
7 picture is coming from the other side of the street and
8 I was further up the street on the other side of
9 Thomas Street.
10 Q. Tell us if you can remember. If you can't remember,
11 just say so?
12 A. I'm not sure if I seen a Land Rover.
13 Q. All right. Fair enough.
14 Now, did you see anybody on the ground?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Again, using this photograph, were they contained in the
17 scene we can see here or was it to the left or the
18 right?
19 A. No. I think just where -- somewhere in where I have
20 marked there.
21 Q. Right. Near the number 6?
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. All right. Do you recall what he was dressed like?
24 A. No.
25 Q. I know earlier on in an interview with
109
1 Detective Constable Keys in 1997 you described him as
2 wearing dark clothes. Would that have been fresh in
3 your mind enough to be accurate at that stage?
4 A. I mean, nothing is sticking out in my head that he was
5 wearing anything bright, you know, so ...
6 Q. Okay. Did you see any police?
7 A. Yes. The man that was lying on the ground, there was
8 a young girl or a young woman was very upset and crying
9 and shouting for help and there was a policewoman over,
10 I think it was a blonde-haired policewoman.
11 Q. Compared with the man who was lying on the ground, where
12 was the young girl, young lady?
13 A. The girl was to the left-hand side, I think, and then
14 the policewoman was on the other side.
15 Q. Was the girl close to the man on the ground or not?
16 A. Yes, she was. I think she was pacing about.
17 Q. Right.
18 A. She was pacing about and she was shouting for help or
19 something like that.
20 Q. Tell me if I have this wrong. Are you saying that there
21 was the man on the ground, the woman who was shouting
22 for help, who was pacing around, but did you say there
23 was a policeman already there?
24 A. No, there was a policewoman. The girl might have been
25 on the ground and then she was up pacing about and the
110
1 policewoman I think was over and said something. I'm
2 not sure. You know, I could see the policewoman over at
3 the situation, but ...
4 Q. Okay. Was anybody attacking the person on the ground?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Did you see any attack at any stage on the person on the
7 ground?
8 A. No.
9 Q. Did you see any other police officers?
10 A. I think I seen another policeman in the middle of the
11 street, but -- because there was a lot of like scuffling
12 and things going on.
13 Q. What was the policeman doing?
14 A. I think he was trying to stop fighting or arguments.
15 Q. Can you tell us your recollection of how he was doing
16 that?
17 A. I think he might have been in between two sets of
18 people.
19 Q. We have heard that at some point -- or rather, we have
20 seen materials that show that at some point police moved
21 a number of people up towards the church in a line. Did
22 you see any of that?
23 A. No. I don't remember seeing any of that.
24 Q. Okay. Can I take you back to your draft witness
25 statement at page [80516]? If we can look at
111
1 paragraph 11, what you say there -- and bear in mind you
2 have not signed this:
3 " I did not see how the body at the junction of
4 Thomas and Market Street came to be on the ground."
5 That's true, isn't it?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. "I do not remember actually seeing anyone beating him."
8 You just told us that:
9 "As I said in my interview with
10 Detective Constable Keys on 4th June 1997, I did see
11 an older man in his 40s with receding hair, wearing
12 a round-necked jumper and possibly a brown jacket trying
13 to get a younger man in his 20s to leave the area."
14 Is that what you were telling us about earlier or is
15 that a different event?
16 A. No, I think that's it.
17 Q. That's your recollection, is it, of somebody trying, as
18 it were, on the Catholic side, to get --
19 A. His friends home, yes.
20 Q. Right, because you go on to say there:
21 "The younger man was being abusive to the Protestant
22 crowd."
23 Do you remember that now?
24 A. I think maybe he might have been the one that the
25 policeman was in between the two of them, sort of, when
112
1 they were at each other, if you know what I mean.
2 It is really hard to remember just what -- what --
3 I can remember things. It is just hard to remember in
4 what form they took.
5 Q. Certainly. See if I can jog your memory on this.
6 You say there that you think the older man was
7 trying to get the younger one to leave the area. Where
8 might you have got that impression from? Was he trying
9 to push him or shout at him or what?
10 A. Yes, I think he was shouting at him to leave. It is
11 hard for me to say what I have seen or what I am
12 thinking, you know. Obviously there was someone on the
13 ground already hurt, but -- and he was maybe trying to
14 get him home, but I'm not sure if I have thought this to
15 myself, "This is what this man is doing", or I heard him
16 shout, "Get home".
17 Q. You go on in this draft to say:
18 "My impression of what had gone on was that these
19 men were both Catholic, that the older man was blaming
20 this younger man for starting the whole thing by calling
21 out 'Orange bastards', not realising there was a big
22 crowd of Protestants, not just a few."
23 Is that your impression now?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. You very fairly said you are finding it difficult to
113
1 distinguish between what you remember and what you have,
2 as it were, gone over in your mind and planted there.
3 A. Yes, or what I have read even, you know.
4 Q. Help the Panel with this, can you: when you say that's
5 your impression now, is that your impression now so far
6 as you believe it, because that's what you remember
7 seeing, or because it is what you might have read
8 afterwards?
9 A. No. The things that are sticking out in my mind is
10 someone coming down the street shouting, "Orange Bs" and
11 then someone hurt on the street and somebody trying to
12 get part of their group home, because some of the group
13 had been hurt, so ...
14 Q. Okay. Only two police officers then, the lady and
15 another policeman?
16 A. That's all I can remember seeing at that stage.
17 Q. Did you join up with the other bar staff at some point?
18 A. Did I go back into the bar to them?
19 Q. Yes, or did they come out to you?
20 A. No, I would have went back into the bar. I don't
21 remember them coming out, but I do remember -- I had to
22 go back into the bar because I was a keyholder.
23 Q. How long do you think you were out there?
24 A. No more than a few minutes.
25 Q. Were you scared?
114
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Was that part of the scary events?
3 A. I was scared and I was upset because there was someone
4 hurt and this girl was crying and that was upsetting me,
5 and then there was all this -- just I really -- I hadn't
6 seen anything just like that before. It was mayhem.
7 Q. So there was still mayhem, do you think, at that stage?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. You have told us at this point that nobody was attacking
10 the man on the street?
11 A. No, I didn't see him being attacked.
12 Q. Obviously the girl was very upset --
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. -- and you think a policewoman was either there or came
15 over to her?
16 A. Yes, there was definitely a policewoman over.
17 Q. When you say there was mayhem otherwise, was this
18 shouting or fighting or what?
19 A. There was a lot of shouting going on. You know, I do
20 remember that there was like a scuffle in the middle of
21 where the traffic lights were in the middle of the town
22 and a lot of shouting and just people rushing about.
23 Q. Right.
24 You told us then, after a few minutes, you went back
25 in.
115
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Did you see anything else after that?
3 A. I don't remember -- no. Well, I never came out again
4 and I was parked further on up the street. When --
5 I think when we left, the town was -- I don't remember
6 the ambulance or anything, although partly I have said
7 that I remember an ambulance, but I can't remember
8 an ambulance.
9 Q. Look at page [07771]. If we highlight the large part
10 text, this is a note arising out of something from
11 Detective Constable Keys. We have already spoken about
12 you talking to him. What it says here is that on
13 4th June 1997 he spoke to you:
14 "... who was on the premises with other staff,
15 Stephen Thornbury, Derek Lyttle and Julie Sherwood.
16 Last customer left 1.30 am. Witness went to shut roller
17 shutter door outside the emergency fire doors at 1.45 am
18 when she heard people walking down Thomas Street
19 shouting. 'Fucking orange bastards' was shouted 3/4
20 times."
21 So what he has there is although you were closing
22 down at 1.30, there was actually a gap between you
23 closing down and you going to the fire door we have been
24 looking at. Would that be right?
25 A. It could have been. You know, you are not looking at
116
1 the clock.
2 Q. All right.
3 A. I have told him this a day or two after what has
4 happened, and I would say that maybe to what I am going
5 to say now, that's probably more closer obviously.
6 Q. All right. Then it says here:
7 "Witness stepped back from doors thinking these
8 people were coming in. She told Julie Sherwood to tell
9 Stephen Thornbury, who came up to Beverley."
10 Again, that's what you have told us.
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. "Both looked out briefly", I think that should be,
13 unless you were both locked out.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. "Saw fight in progress."
16 What he is saying is at that stage from that door
17 number 5 you looked out and saw a fight going on. Can
18 you help us about that?
19 A. No, I don't remember any of that.
20 Q. All right. Then it says:
21 "Went back into bar. Cashed tills up and partially
22 set alarm. Went into lounge and went through lounge
23 doors. Other staff looked through toilet window."
24 So he is saying there that you told him you joined
25 the other staff looking out of the toilet window at that
117
1 point
2 A. No, I never. I didn't know where they were until
3 I walked out on to the street.
4 Q. If you had looked through the toilet window -- I am so
5 sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. What did you
6 say?
7 A. I went out through the lounge doors, and it was when
8 I went out through the lounge doors I seen the other
9 staff up at the window.
10 Q. Oh, I see. So you could see them looking out?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Right. Then it goes on:
13 "Witness saw man in dark clothes lying on road in
14 a recovery position. Girl with him crying."
15 Is that what you have been describing to us?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. "Saw an older man, 40s, receding hair cut short,
18 round-necked jumper and possibly brown jacket trying to
19 get another man in his 20s to leave the area."
20 Is that what you are recalling now of the two men?
21 A. Yes, down in the middle of the road.
22 Q. "This person", and that's the younger man, I take it,
23 "was abusive towards the Protestant crowd."
24 Yes? Is that what you told him? Do you recall
25 saying that?
118
1 A. No.
2 Q. All right. Then, as you said, it says here you saw the
3 ambulance arrive. I think you can't remember that now?
4 A. No, I don't remember that.
5 Q. Then it says:
6 "Stayed on the street five minutes. Went back into
7 bar. Left at 2.45 am."
8 It says you won't make a witness statement. Were
9 you frightened of making a witness statement?
10 A. I didn't make a statement because I hadn't seen anything
11 that had happened.
12 Q. Didn't you think perhaps that the description you had
13 given of the man in his 40s might have allowed the
14 police to find a witness?
15 A. I probably at that stage didn't make a whole lot of it,
16 because I just thought it was a fight, and I didn't at
17 that stage -- you know, it had been a street fight and
18 I didn't want to get involved.
19 Q. I appreciate that on 27th July (sic) it was a street
20 fight. Did you know by 4th June that somebody had died?
21 A. Probably, yes.
22 Q. Were you reluctant to get involved because of the
23 sectarian issues in the area?
24 A. I can't -- at this stage, I can't really say.
25 Q. Can I ask you to look at a witness statement that
119
1 Mr Thornbury gave? It is at page [09125]. If I just
2 pick up the last quarter of it --
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. -- three lines into that it says:
5 "As these people walked past the bar, the windows
6 were banged. This is something that happens nearly
7 every week."
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Now, you have told us the people you were describing
10 going past were not on the pavement --
11 A. No.
12 Q. -- near Jamesons.
13 A. No, not at the door I was at.
14 Q. Did you hear anybody banging the windows?
15 A. Where I was, there was only the double doors and the
16 shutter, which I had went. So they passed me and went
17 on down the street. There is nothing that went on in my
18 time at the bar. I went into the back store. So that
19 might have happened then when I was up in the back
20 stores.
21 Q. All right. The statement goes on:
22 "I carried on with the cleaning up and I looked out
23 the side door of the lounge about five or ten minutes
24 later because I could hear a commotion at the end of
25 Thomas Street with High Street. Beverley was with me at
120
1 this time. I only looked out for a short time and I saw
2 a crowd of people at the bottom of the street. There
3 was a lot of shouting going on."
4 He goes on to describe it: so if I understand your
5 recollection, the only point at which you were with him,
6 Mr Thornbury --
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. -- was in the first place when you were trying to shut
9 the shutters at number 5?
10 A. Yes, and at that stage I don't actually remember looking
11 out the door, although ...
12 Q. All right, but if we just read on over the page,
13 [09126], what he says there is:
14 "... shouting going on and two groups of people
15 squaring up to each other."
16 Did you see two groups of people squaring up to each
17 other, as you would describe it?
18 A. I did see men squaring up to each other and I think that
19 was where I was saying where the older man was trying
20 to -- there was a policeman trying to sort it out and
21 then that older man who was in the group that had come
22 down Thomas Street had been trying to keep opposite
23 groups apart.
24 Q. So you think that the older man was not just trying to
25 get the younger man to leave, he was trying to stop him
121
1 squaring up to other people. Would that be right?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Can you give us any help about what the younger man
4 might have looked like?
5 A. No, not a bit.
6 Q. All right. A number of witnesses say a number of
7 different things about how this fighting started and how
8 it developed. One of them is that police were not
9 active until the ambulance arrived.
10 Do I understand it right that, although you saw
11 police being active, you can't tell us that you saw the
12 ambulance arrive?
13 A. No, I can't mind the ambulance.
14 Q. All right. It has been the evidence of a number of
15 Catholics who walked down the street that they were
16 walking down quietly minding their own business and were
17 suddenly attacked when they met Thomas Street.
18 Are you clear that the group you saw or heard
19 included at least one person who was shouting offensive
20 swear words?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. The man you saw on the ground -- because we know that,
23 unfortunately, two men ended up on the ground --
24 A. Okay.
25 Q. -- one of whom recovered.
122
1 A. Okay.
2 Q. Did the man you saw on the ground get up at any stage?
3 A. No, I didn't see him.
4 MR UNDERWOOD: Thank you very much. Those are the questions
5 I have for you. As I said, it is possible other people
6 might want to ask you some things as well.
7 A. Okay.
8 MR O'HARE: I have no questions.
9 Cross-examination by MR McGRORY
10 MR McGRORY: Miss Irwin, I want to ask you some questions on
11 behalf of the Hamill family.
12 A. Okay.
13 Q. Mr Underwood asked you whether you were clear on whether
14 or not you heard some one person shouting, "Orange Bs",
15 or something of that kind.
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. You said that you were.
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. But is it a correct interpretation of your evidence
20 that, relative to the fighting that occurred, you are
21 just not able to tell us at what stage that shouting or
22 that shout occurred?
23 A. The shout would have occurred prior to what had been
24 going on on the street.
25 Q. Let's have a look at that, if you don't mind.
123
1 A. Okay.
2 Q. You said last orders were called about 12.45.
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Now, is it correct that calling last orders is shouting
5 out to the patrons of the bar that they can have one
6 more drink?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. That's what that means. So the next thing that happens
9 after last orders being shouted is that orders are taken
10 for last drinks?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. Then there is some drinking-up time allowed?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. You allow some time for the patrons to at least enjoy
15 that drink before you start to try to get them out.
16 Isn't that right?
17 A. 1.30.
18 Q. It is your aim to have them out for 1.30. Isn't that
19 right?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. Do you accept that on a fairly busy night, sometimes you
22 don't always achieve that?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And that, of course, by the time you have finished
25 getting the patrons out, then you start to clear up.
124
1 Isn't that correct?
2 A. No. We actually clear up while they are still drinking
3 up their last drink.
4 Q. But do you accept, between calling last orders and
5 starting to clear up, you allow some time for the
6 patrons to enjoy their drink?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Obviously, if you serve someone a drink, you are not
9 going to put them out immediately?
10 A. No.
11 Q. If you would look, please, at document [07771]. If
12 I can perhaps have the long paragraph highlighted. Now
13 that appears to be a record of a conversation you had
14 with DC Keys on 4th June --
15 A. Okay.
16 Q. -- 1997. Would you accept that your memory of events
17 then would be a lot better than it is now?
18 A. Yes, obviously, yes.
19 Q. Yes, of course.
20 Do you see where he says he spoke to you, you were
21 on the premises with other staff, you name the other
22 staff?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. "Last customer left 1.30 am. Witness went to shut
25 roller shutter doors outside the emergency fire doors at
125
1 1.45 am."
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Do you accept you might not have stepped out to do that
4 until approximately 1.45?
5 A. No.
6 Q. Are you saying --
7 A. Oh, no, sorry, that was 1.45 there.
8 Q. Yes, 1.45. I have used a different terminology. Do you
9 accept that's likely to be an accurate account of when
10 you went to do that task?
11 A. Yes.
12 Q. That is the point at which you hear people walking down
13 and shouting. Isn't that correct?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Well, if there was other evidence that the attack on
16 Robert Hamill and Witness D had occurred before 1.45,
17 would you accept that?
18 THE CHAIRMAN: It is not for her, is it, to say whether she
19 accepts it or not? I think you are trying to get the
20 witness to conduct an argument for you.
21 MR McGRORY: I will move on, sir.
22 Would you look, please, at document [07773]? Now
23 that would appear to be -- we need to hear from DC Keys
24 about this -- a record of a conversation he had with you
25 on 2nd June 1997, which would be two days before the
126
1 conversation you had with him that was recorded in the
2 previous document.
3 SIR JOHN EVANS: It is Sherwood. That's wrong.
4 MR McGRORY: Is that Sherwood? Sorry. Sorry.
5 Now, when I asked you earlier, Ms Irwin, whether or
6 not it was your impression that you heard the shouting
7 in terms of its relevance to, in time, the events that
8 happened down on the street --
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. -- you did not witness the events in the street, sure
11 you didn't?
12 A. No, no.
13 Q. So is it not the position that you are simply unable to
14 answer that question?
15 A. I can only answer it in that I heard and seen them
16 passing the doors when I was at the back and, when
17 I came back, that there had been some sort of
18 confrontation, so that the confrontation seemed to have
19 happened after I had heard the shouting.
20 Q. Well, is it not the situation that, in fact, the
21 confrontation had happened by the time you went to the
22 door?
23 A. The shutter door or when I went out on to the street?
24 Q. The first door, the shutter door?
25 A. No.
127
1 Q. You see, what I am getting at is, if the reality is that
2 you did not see the commencement of this incident down
3 the street --
4 A. No.
5 Q. -- it follows from that that you can't say when it
6 started.
7 A. If the people that were walking past me were the people
8 that were in the confrontation, that's how I can assume
9 the confrontation happened after I seen them passing the
10 shutter door.
11 Q. Yes, but, forgive me, I am suggesting to you that you
12 are speculating. You don't describe the people walking
13 past you, sure you don't?
14 A. No.
15 Q. So the reality is you are not able to say --
16 A. No.
17 Q. -- whether or not they are the same people?
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Is that right?
19 A. Yes.
20 MR McGRORY: I have no further questions.
21 MR UNDERWOOD: Nothing arising.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
23 MR UNDERWOOD: Thank you very much.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Miss Irwin, you are free now to go.
25 A. Okay.
128
1 (The witness withdrew)
2 MR UNDERWOOD: Stephen Thornbury, please.
3 MR STEPHEN JOSEPH THORNBURY (affirmed)
4 Examination by MR UNDERWOOD
5 MR UNDERWOOD: Good afternoon, Mr Thornbury. My name is
6 Underwood. I am Counsel for the Inquiry and I will be
7 asking most of the questions. Can I ask you your full
8 names, first of all?
9 A. Stephen Joseph Thornbury.
10 Q. Can we look on the screen at page [81215]? This is
11 a witness statement that was drafted for you. I know
12 you have not signed it. Have you had a chance to look
13 at it?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Is it accurate?
16 A. As far as I can tell, it is accurate.
17 Q. I want to test your memory as best I can -- you tell me
18 if I am pushing it too far -- about the events of
19 27th April 1997.
20 Were you on duty in Jamesons that night?
21 A. Yes, I was, yes.
22 Q. The first thing we are interested in is what time you
23 became aware of anything going on outside. Can you help
24 us with timing?
25 A. Approximately 1.00 am. That's round that time of the
129
1 morning just.
2 Q. Could it have been 1.30 or 1.45?
3 A. Possibly, yes.
4 Q. What alerted you to anything going on outside?
5 A. There was -- I heard shouting up the street, you know,
6 like a commotion in Thomas Street, and one of the staff
7 told me there was some comments they had said to her,
8 you know, like shouts in the street.
9 Q. Did Beverley Irwin ask you to come and have a look at
10 anything or listen to anything?
11 A. As far as I can recall, it was Beverley, yes, as far as
12 I can recall.
13 Q. What did you see when you went with her?
14 A. I saw, you know, there was people at the bottom of the
15 street. There was no large groups of people, I just saw
16 people at the bottom of the street. That's really ...
17 Q. If we can have a look at the photograph that's in the
18 third album, the final photograph, we can see a view of
19 Jamesons Bar here, and what Ms Irwin told us was that to
20 the right of Jamesons there is a building and there is
21 a door there which is, in fact, a door which leads to
22 an alleyway -- a passageway, rather, going into
23 Jamesons. That is right, is it?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. She says that she had gone there to put the shutter down
130
1 and that's when she first heard shouting and she asked
2 for you to come round. What do you say about that?
3 A. It sounds like what happened, you know. I can't really
4 be honestly sure, but I'm assuming that's correct, yes.
5 Q. Is it from there that you saw something going on?
6 A. From the doorway, yes, uh-huh, yes. At that stage,
7 I didn't see -- I just saw groups of people at the
8 bottom of the street.
9 Q. Can I ask you to look at page [09125]? If we take the
10 second half of this, this is a statement that you made
11 on 28th May 1997.
12 First of all, can I ask you, when you made this
13 statement, were you telling the truth?
14 A. Yes. Uh-huh.
15 Q. At that stage, did you have a good recollection of what
16 had happened?
17 A. That was --
18 Q. A month later, precisely; a month and a day.
19 A. I had a reasonable memory of what was happening, yes.
20 Q. Okay. Picking this up from the top:
21 "I heard fellas shouting, but I couldn't say what
22 they were shouting as they walked past the front of the
23 bar. I didn't have a view of them because of the
24 stained glass and the window shutters were down. That's
25 the blinds on the inside. As these people walked past
131
1 the bar, the windows were banged. This is something
2 that happens nearly every week."
3 Bearing in mind you say this is something that
4 happens nearly every week, did it happen on that night?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Right. You say:
7 "The shutters were banged also."
8 Again, can you recall that now?
9 A. I am not sure about the shutters now, but I remember the
10 windows being banged. I remember that bit, yes.
11 Q. You say:
12 "I carried on with the cleaning up and I looked out
13 the side door of the lounge about five or ten minutes
14 later because I could hear a commotion at the end of
15 Thomas Street with High Street. Beverley was with me at
16 this time."
17 Now, when you describe the side door of the lounge,
18 is that the one we were just looking at or is that
19 a different door?
20 A. That's the side door, yes.
21 Q. That's the one we have described as number 5 on
22 something Ms Irwin showed us. So you are clear, are
23 you, that time went by between you first hearing people
24 come by, making a noise and banging on the windows, and
25 you looking out with Beverley Irwin?
132
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. When you looked out with Beverley Irwin -- first of all,
3 did it take you time to get round to Beverley Irwin?
4 A. I don't know. I can't remember where I was at the time
5 when she spoke to me.
6 Q. When you looked out from what we are calling door
7 number 5, you say there you saw a crowd of people at the
8 bottom of the street, a lot of shouting going on. Then,
9 if we go over the page, [09126]:
10 "There were two groups of people squaring up to each
11 other."
12 Does that help your recollection of what you saw
13 when you looked out of that side door?
14 A. It is really hard to remember. I assume -- if I made
15 that statement, I assume that's what I remembered at the
16 time. You know, that's really all I can help you with
17 at that stage.
18 Q. It is my job to squeeze people's memories.
19 A. I appreciate that.
20 Q. If I am pushing too hard, say so, and if you don't
21 remember, don't hesitate to do it.
22 Really, you are saying, if I understand it right,
23 that, if that's what you were saying at the time, that's
24 what you recalled at the time and you were telling the
25 truth but you can't recall now?
133
1 A. No, I can't recall now.
2 Q. Fair enough. Reading on in here:
3 "I was 100-150 yards away, and I only popped my head
4 out and back in again."
5 You didn't know anyone:
6 "I worked on behind the bar when I came back in.
7 I think Beverley came back in again also. I could hear
8 the commotion getting louder and I went down to the
9 toilet windows and looked out."
10 Can we look at the last photograph in bundle 3?
11 Where was the toilet window? We need to give you
12 control. You can use that pen to write on. Thank you
13 very much. If we mark that "1". It doesn't look as if
14 that opens, apart from the top part opening outwards.
15 A. That's correct.
16 Q. So what sort of view did you have?
17 A. It was very limited, you know. I could see to the
18 bottom of Thomas Street and maybe slightly across the
19 way. I couldn't actually put my head out of the window,
20 if you know what I mean.
21 Q. Sure. Were there other people there with you?
22 A. Julie might have been there, Julie Sherwood, but that's,
23 you know, off the top of my head.
24 Q. What, if anything, did you see at that stage?
25 A. Well, I saw a fella lying on the road. That was at
134
1 Eastwoods shop. There was a girl with him and there was
2 a policeman standing over the top of him. I didn't know
3 any of those people at all. That's what I saw.
4 Q. I am going to ask for another view now, the night model.
5 If we go round to the left a little and stop it there,
6 this is taken -- essentially this is a photograph taken
7 that goes 360 degrees. It goes round from just outside
8 Eastwoods. You recall Eastwoods. If we get a screen
9 shot of that and give control back to you, can you help
10 us with where you saw the man on the ground?
11 You just have to wait for a second until the screen
12 gets a bit smaller. Right.
13 A. Approximately here.
14 Q. Okay. If we call that number 2. Sorry, I interrupted
15 you. I think you said there was a girl with him and
16 a policeman. Can you describe where the girl was
17 relative to him?
18 A. The girl was kneeling over him and the policeman was
19 standing on the other side of him.
20 Q. Are you certain it was a policeman rather than
21 a policewoman?
22 A. As far as I can recall, it was a policeman.
23 Q. Was anything else going on around there that you could
24 see?
25 A. Not that I can recall, you know. I just heard a lot of
135
1 shouting going on, and, you know, general commotion.
2 Q. Can you give us any timescale for the gap between when
3 you looked out of what we are calling door 5 with
4 Beverley Irwin and when you looked out of the toilet
5 window and saw this?
6 A. Maybe five, ten minutes. You know, I can't be sure.
7 Q. Can I just see if I have this clear? The first event
8 you are aware of is when you are in the bar and there is
9 the banging on the windows certainly.
10 The second is, five or ten minutes later, you got
11 round to where Beverley Irwin was at what we are calling
12 door 5, you looked out from there and you saw people
13 squaring up.
14 A. Uh-huh.
15 Q. The third is that five or ten minutes after that, you
16 looked out of the toilet window and you saw the person
17 on the ground. Is that fair?
18 A. That's reasonable, yes, as far as I can recall.
19 Q. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I want to
20 try to get the best impression.
21 A. It is hard to tell now, after all this time, the
22 timescale.
23 Q. Did you see any other policemen?
24 A. No, not that I can recall.
25 Q. Do you remember an ambulance?
136
1 A. Yes, I do, yes.
2 Q. Could you see the ambulance itself or did you just see
3 ambulance staff or a stretcher?
4 A. It is hard to remember. I seem to recall maybe someone
5 being put into an ambulance.
6 Q. Can you give us any idea where the ambulance was?
7 A. No, not off the top of my head.
8 Q. All right. In your witness statement that you gave to
9 the police -- we don't need to go back to this -- you
10 said you looked out for about five minutes at this stage
11 out of the toilet window and you saw the man on the
12 ground being put into the ambulance.
13 Would that have been right? Would that have been
14 true when you said that?
15 A. I am assuming it would be, yes.
16 Q. To the best of your belief?
17 A. To the best of my belief, yes.
18 Q. Perhaps we could go to page [09127]. That starts:
19 "I went back again and looked out of the toilet
20 window. I saw a policeman with a baton gun and a few
21 others in the middle of the street. They were facing up
22 towards the church. They were moving a crowd back."
23 Is this a second visit to the toilet window or is
24 this the same one?
25 A. I can't remember. I do remember that now, the policeman
137
1 with a baton gun. I remember that, but I can't remember
2 whether it was the second time I went to the toilet
3 window or not.
4 Q. You go on to say:
5 "I felt it was safe enough to leave the bar and we
6 left at approximately 2.30 am."
7 Was that immediately after you saw the police moving
8 the crowd up?
9 A. Yes, very shortly after that, yes.
10 Q. When you left the bar, were you intending to go up into
11 Market Street/High Street, or were you going the other
12 way?
13 A. No, I was going home.
14 Q. The Panel has to work through some varying accounts of
15 what people saw on the night, as I am sure you
16 appreciate.
17 One of the possibilities that might be put is that
18 the Catholics walking up the street did it in a very
19 quiet and orderly fashion and that there was no shouting
20 or banging. What would you say to that?
21 A. What I can say is I heard shouting and banging, but
22 I can't tell you who was doing it. That's my honest
23 opinion.
24 Q. Another possibility that's being advanced is that
25 Catholics ran down the street shouting.
138
1 A. I didn't see anyone running down the street shouting.
2 Q. Did you hear or see anybody trying to stop the fighting
3 or trying to stop aggression?
4 A. What, from --
5 Q. From anybody?
6 A. The person I saw, I saw a policeman, as I have said,
7 with a baton gun. They were trying to keep the crowd
8 apart.
9 Q. Before that, did you see anybody, policeman or
10 otherwise?
11 A. Not that I can recall.
12 MR UNDERWOOD: Right. Thank you, Mr Thornbury. There may
13 be other questions for you. That's all I have to ask.
14 MR O'HARE: I have a few brief matters, Mr Chairman.
15 Cross-examination by MR O'HARE
16 MR O'HARE: You said in reply to Mr Underwood that apart
17 from the policeman with a baton gun, you don't recall
18 any other police involvement, as it were, with this
19 crowd at the bottom of Thomas Street.
20 A. With the crowd -- I can't recall, no.
21 Q. Perhaps page [09125] could be put up, please. It is the
22 second page of that statement, [09126].
23 Am I right in saying that after you had been at the
24 front door, you then went to the toilet windows and
25 looked out? This is approximately five lines down from
139
1 the start of that statement.
2 A. Uh-huh.
3 Q. Do you see a sentence there starting:
4 "I could hear the commotion getting louder and
5 I went down to the toilet windows and looked out."
6 Do you see that part?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Then:
9 "It was a short time after I had looked out through
10 the doors. I can't say how long it would have been.
11 When I looked out the toilet window, I think all the
12 staff were there. When I first looked out, I saw two
13 boys lying on the street. One was lying in front of
14 Eastwoods clothes shop. The other was lying at the end
15 of Thomas Street nearer to the bakery."
16 That's what you told the police in your statement.
17 A. Uh-huh.
18 Q. This was the truth as far as you were concerned?
19 A. As far as I was concerned, yes.
20 Q. "I seen the police in the middle of the road."
21 That's the position
22 A. Obviously, I have recalled that when I said it, you
23 know. I don't recall it at the minute.
24 Q. No, you don't recall it at the minute, but when you were
25 making that statement to the police, you recalled seeing
140
1 police in the middle of the road at that stage?
2 A. I must have, yes.
3 Q. That was the first visit, if I might call it that, that
4 you had to look out the toilet window?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. You went on to describe:
7 "There was a Land Rover on the Woodhouse Street side
8 and there were people behind the Rover on the
9 Woodhouse Street side.
10 A. Yes, if that's what I said, that's what it is, yes.
11 Q. Do you recall that today as we are sitting here?
12 A. I don't recall it today.
13 Q. Then:
14 "There was only about two policemen there. One may
15 have been a woman. They were trying to keep the two
16 groups apart."
17 A. Right.
18 Q. When you told the police that on the date you made your
19 statement, that was the truth?
20 A. That was the base of my knowledge.
21 Q. In fact, it was at a later stage then that you saw the
22 police officer, a different police officer, with a riot
23 gun?
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. Isn't that correct?
141
1 A. I don't know if it was a different police officer.
2 I just saw a police officer --
3 Q. You saw a police officer later on with a riot gun?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. He was facing the line, as it were, of people, and that
6 was in the direction of towards St Mark's Church?
7 A. That's correct.
8 Q. Now, after you looked out the bathroom -- the toilet
9 window, you went back into the bar again according to
10 your statement. Do you remember that? If you read on
11 down:
12 "I looked out for about five minutes and then I went
13 back into the bar."
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Do you see that?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. Then:
18 " I could hear shouting going on and I went down
19 again and looked out the toilet still hear window", it
20 says here. I take it that's a misprint. At this stage
21 you saw an ambulance on the street.
22 A. Right.
23 Q. Can we take it that was the first time you saw
24 an ambulance, when you went back to the toilet window
25 and looked out the second time?
142
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. When you first saw the police in the middle of the road,
3 was there an ambulance there at that stage?
4 A. I don't think so.
5 Q. It was at this second stage when you went back to the
6 toilet window, then there was an ambulance there?
7 A. Yes.
8 MR O'HARE: Thank you, Mr Thornbury.
9 MR McGRORY: No questions, sir.
10 Cross-examination by MR MALLON
11 MR MALLON: If I can refer you to your witness statement,
12 that is the Inquiry statement, paragraph number 7. Do
13 you have it in front of you?
14 A. No. I have it now, yes.
15 Q. Page [81216]. Thank you. Paragraph number 7. You
16 said:
17 "I did not go outside, but I heard the windows of
18 the bar being banged by a crowd coming down
19 Thomas Street. As I have said in my statement, this
20 happened nearly every week."
21 So that was something that you would have been
22 familiar with?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Did it cause you any undue concern?
25 A. No.
143
1 Q. Then you go on to deal with that in greater detail in
2 paragraph number 7:
3 " I assumed that these people were coming from
4 St Patrick's Hall further up Thomas Street."
5 But is it also true there is a British Legion hall
6 further up Thomas Street?
7 A. There is, yes.
8 Q. So would you have known whether these people were
9 Catholic or Protestant?
10 A. Well, usually people who banged the windows were coming
11 from St Patrick's Hall. That was common knowledge in
12 Portadown at the time. There was no reason for the
13 British Legion to bang the windows of Jamesons Bar.
14 Q. Other than that, by their actions you couldn't identify
15 them or did you know them?
16 A. I couldn't identify any of them. I didn't see them.
17 I just heard them.
18 Q. As they were coming down, they used to shout things like
19 "Orange bastard", but did you hear that shouted this
20 night?
21 A. I can't recall that. I just heard the windows being
22 banged. It was common for things to be said, but on
23 that occasion I can't be sure whether that was said or
24 not.
25 Q. You said:
144
1 "Occasionally there would be trouble and there would
2 have been a fight outside."
3 A. Uh-huh.
4 Q. Had you ever physically experienced that yourself?
5 A. I was there when it happened. I lived in Portadown all
6 my life. You know, it was a common part of life in
7 Portadown during those times.
8 Q. In relation to Ms Irwin, you were part-time bar staff.
9 Can you tell us what her role was in the bar?
10 A. Beverley Irwin would have been the bar manager at the
11 time.
12 MR MALLON: She was the bar manager. Thank you.
13 MR UNDERWOOD: Nothing arising. Thank you.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: We will have a break now. Thank you, sir.
15 MR UNDERWOOD: Thank you very much.
16 (The witness withdrew)
17 (3.15 pm)
18 (A short break)
19 (3.30 pm)
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr Underwood?
21 MR UNDERWOOD: Julie Sherwood, please.
22 MISS JULIE SHERWOOD (sworn)
23 Examination by MR UNDERWOOD
24 A. Hello.
25 Q. Good afternoon. My name is Underwood. I am Counsel to
145
1 the Inquiry and I will be asking questions in the first
2 place. It may be that other people have a few questions
3 at the end of it.
4 Can you give us your full names, please?
5 A. Julie Sherwood.
6 Q. Are you Miss, Mrs or Ms?
7 A. Miss.
8 Q. Miss Sherwood, can I get up on screen for you to have
9 a look at page [81153]? This is a draft witness
10 statement that was prepared for you. I know you have
11 not signed it. Have you had a chance to look at it?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. Is it accurate?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Is what's said in there true, to the best of your
16 recollection?
17 A. From what I can remember, yes.
18 Q. Of course. It is 12 years ago. Everybody understands.
19 What I want to do is try to get out of you your
20 recollection of the events of the night.
21 A. Uh-huh.
22 Q. Were you on duty at Jamesons on the 26th/27th?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. Did something happen outside that drew your attention?
25 A. We were up the back. We were going to put the money in
146
1 the safe and we heard shouting.
2 Q. When you say "up the back", if we can get the photograph
3 up on screen, that's the last photograph in album 3 --
4 this may not help you, because it only shows the front.
5 A. No.
6 Q. Help us with the layout. We know that the double doors
7 there lead into the bar and that the bar is behind the
8 big two windows.
9 A. Do you see if you go up by them bins and you can see
10 a black sign? That's a Guinness sign. Where I was was
11 just below -- that was the shutter I was going to close,
12 just below the Guinness sign.
13 Q. We can give you control of this and there is a pen in
14 front of you and you can actually write, if you are not
15 shaking too much. You can put a cross where you say
16 that was.
17 A. Put a cross?
18 Q. If you wouldn't mind. Thank you very much. We will
19 call that number 1.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: That's the way that they bring the supplies
21 in. Is that right?
22 A. Yes. It was a fire exit door.
23 MR UNDERWOOD: Fire exit door. Okay. What were you doing
24 there?
25 A. If you go in that road, there is a store and we were
147
1 putting the money away and emptying the bottle bin.
2 Q. Who were you with?
3 A. Beverley.
4 Q. Beverley Irwin?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Can you help us with what time this was?
7 A. (Witness shakes head). We were normally closed -- last
8 orders at the bar was normally 12.30 and everybody out
9 for 1.00, so it would have been some time after 1.00.
10 Q. Could it have been 1.30, 1.45? Could you be at all
11 specific?
12 A. No.
13 Q. What did you hear?
14 A. Just heard shouting.
15 Q. Could you tell where it was coming from?
16 A. It was coming from outside.
17 Q. From the left or the right or what?
18 A. No, I wouldn't have a clue.
19 Q. Where were you compared with the door? Were you right
20 at the door?
21 A. No, no, back.
22 Q. Beverley Irwin told us she was at the door and she
23 managed to have it open a crack and look out. Do you
24 recall any of that?
25 A. No.
148
1 Q. What happened after that?
2 A. We waited until the noise had sort of went away and then
3 we went and Beverley just hit the shutter down and then
4 we just carried on.
5 Q. Uh-huh. Now, what we have heard from other people who
6 were working there is that there came a time when some
7 people at least looked out of the toilet window. That's
8 the one we see here on our photograph just to the left
9 of the main doors.
10 A. Uh-huh.
11 Q. Were you part of that group?
12 A. I don't mind at all looking out the window. I can't
13 remember.
14 Q. All right. Did you see or hear anything else of any
15 disturbance that night?
16 A. No.
17 Q. If we look at page [07773], we see, if we just highlight
18 the main part of it, that on what looks like
19 2nd June 1997 a Detective Constable Keys spoke to you.
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. In fact, it says he spoke to you on 28th May, so a month
22 and day after the events. Can you remember whether
23 a month and a day after this your memory would have been
24 good?
25 A. It probably would have been, yes.
149
1 Q. "Verbally stated she was working in Jamesons Bar on the
2 night in question. Went with Beverley Irwin to shut the
3 outside roller shutter at the emergency doors. Both
4 were laughing at the time. Whilst at the door, heard
5 people coming down the street. Were shouting something.
6 Doesn't know what."
7 There he has you saying the people were coming down
8 the street.
9 A. Uh-huh.
10 Q. Does that help you recollect where these people might
11 have been and what they might have been doing?
12 A. No --
13 Q. What -- sorry, go on.
14 A. They were just shouting outside as if they were coming
15 down the street.
16 Q. By "down the street", do you mean from the
17 British Legion end --
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. -- to the junction with Market Street end?
20 A. Yes, because we actually waited until the shouting had
21 sort of went by so we could nip out and close the
22 shutter.
23 Q. So people actually went by you before you did the
24 closing?
25 A. Uh-huh.
150
1 Q. Got you. It said there:
2 "... shouting something. Doesn't know what. She
3 believed she was seen."
4 Can you help us with what you might have meant by
5 that? Seen by the people going by?
6 A. Yes. We actually thought they were shouting at us.
7 Q. Sorry. You actually thought what?
8 A. They had heard us laughing and they were actually
9 shouting at us.
10 Q. I see:
11 "... went back into the hallway and went down into
12 the lounge. Denies she did not walk out ..."
13 It is not quite clear what that's supposed to say:
14 "... but was aware that a fight had taken place."
15 What he has you recorded there as saying is that you
16 were aware a fight had taken place. Can you help us
17 with what that might have meant?
18 A. No. No.
19 Q. Did you all leave together in the end?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. The others, you see, saw something going on at the top
22 at the junction, whether it was a fight or the aftermath
23 of a fight or something else.
24 A. Uh-huh.
25 Q. Was there discussion between you about that?
151
1 A. No, not at the time.
2 Q. Were you aware of waiting until you could go home --
3 rather, before you could go home, until whatever was
4 going on stopped?
5 A. Well, there was no noise probably when we were ready to
6 go home, so we just went on.
7 Q. Right. Do you recall anybody banging on the windows or
8 banging on the shutters?
9 A. No.
10 Q. If they had done that, would you have heard it from
11 everywhere in the bar?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Is there anything else you can tell us about the night?
14 A. No.
15 Q. Do you understand how important this is and how
16 difficult it is to reconstruct after 12 years what went
17 on?
18 A. Uh-huh.
19 Q. Search your memory, if you would, for anything -- can
20 you describe any of the people?
21 A. No. I never seen anybody. I just heard the shouting.
22 Q. Could you tell from the shouting whether it was more
23 than one person that was shouting?
24 A. No.
25 Q. Do you get the impression it was men or women or
152
1 a mixture?
2 A. I think it was a man.
3 Q. A man?
4 A. A man shouting.
5 MR UNDERWOOD: All right. Thank you very much. There may
6 be more questions.
7 A. Thank you.
8 MR O'HARE: I have no questions.
9 Cross-examination by MR McGRORY
10 MR McGRORY: Please, sir, I have a few questions.
11 Miss Sherwood, I have some questions to ask you on
12 behalf of the Hamill family. I will not keep you too
13 long.
14 A. Okay.
15 Q. I know you have just given evidence that, to the best of
16 your recollection, the last orders were called around
17 12.30, but Beverley Irwin has given evidence that it was
18 around about 12.45. Could that have been the case?
19 A. Sometimes.
20 Q. Now, I am going to suggest to you as well that you have
21 said in your interview to the Inquiry -- now,
22 unfortunately, the note of the interview I have is not
23 paginated, but it may not be necessary to try to find
24 it -- that it might take an hour, an hour and a half to
25 get the crowd out, to get the bar cleared on a Saturday
153
1 night.
2 A. Cleaned.
3 Q. Cleaned. Is that right?
4 A. Cleaned.
5 Q. But it would take an hour, an hour and a half to do
6 that?
7 A. To clean it, yes.
8 Q. I just want to clarify that. Would you have done the
9 bulk of the cleaning work before you went to close the
10 shutters?
11 A. No. We actually -- if I can remember right, we went up
12 the back. We usually put the money away first. So the
13 money would have been put away. When we were going up
14 the back, it is when we heard the shouting.
15 Q. Yes. If I could just talk to you about the money.
16 Beverley Irwin said it would maybe take about 20 minutes
17 to do the money. Would that be correct?
18 A. Uh-huh, yes.
19 Q. In your recollection, the money was done?
20 A. We heard the shouting first and went out and closed the
21 shutter. Then we came back in, done the money and
22 emptied the bottle bin.
23 Q. Can I ask you just to have a look, please, at
24 page [07773] that Mr Underwood has shown you?
25 Just before I look at that -- I am sure I will be
154
1 corrected if this is wrong -- Beverley Irwin has
2 suggested you came up behind her with the bottles when
3 you went up the alley?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Would that not suggest you had done the bottles?
6 A. No, you bring the bottle bin with you.
7 Q. I am not clear on this. I am trying to get to the
8 mechanisms of it.
9 A. When we used a bottle -- say somebody ordered a coke, so
10 when we had the empty coke bottle, we would have put it
11 into a bin on wheels, so we wheeled it up the back then
12 to where the empty crates was.
13 Q. Okay.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Is this something which goes on while the
15 money is being cashed up?
16 A. Yes.
17 MR McGRORY: Do you agree that by calling last orders that
18 means that people are given the opportunity to order one
19 more drink?
20 A. Last orders, yes.
21 Q. And that a number of people -- the drinks then have to
22 be served at that point?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. And that some reasonable time is given to those people
25 to take their drinks?
155
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Now, if I could just draw your attention to that
3 document [07773], towards the last sentence of it there
4 is this double negative, if I may put it that way.
5 I will try to get to the bottom of this:
6 "Denies she did not walk out."
7 That would suggest you might have walked out.
8 A. No. What that says, I didn't go out when I was
9 closing -- when Beverley was shutting the shutter.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: You have to read it in the context of "but
11 was aware", but it is a bit difficult.
12 MR McGRORY: We will have to talk to DC Keys whenever he
13 comes to give evidence, but the problem is we don't
14 appear to have any handwritten notes or record of what
15 he took down at the time:
16 "But was aware that a fight had taken place."
17 I am suggesting to you that you were aware that
18 a fight had taken place
19 A. Well, I obviously thought there was a fight taking place
20 with the shouting.
21 MR McGRORY: Yes. Thank you.
22 Cross-examination by MR MALLON
23 MR MALLON: One question. When you were going down to close
24 the shutter doors, had the money been put in the safe at
25 that time or was the money still available for --
156
1 A. No. The money was still available.
2 Q. So the money hadn't been put away at that time?
3 A. No.
4 Q. Is it normally done after the doors are closed?
5 A. Yes, when everybody is out and the bar is empty, then
6 you bring it up and put it in the safe.
7 Q. That's right. You don't do it until all the doors are
8 closed?
9 A. Until all the doors are closed.
10 MR MALLON: Thank you.
11 MR UNDERWOOD: Nothing arising. Thank you.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much.
13 MR UNDERWOOD: Thank you very much, Miss Sherwood.
14 A. Thank you.
15 (The witness withdrew)
16 MR UNDERWOOD: Derek Lyttle, please.
17 MR DEREK RODNEY LYTTLE (sworn)
18 Examination by MR UNDERWOOD
19 MR UNDERWOOD: Good afternoon.
20 A. Afternoon.
21 Q. My name is Underwood. I am Counsel to the Inquiry and
22 I am asking a few questions. It may well be that a few
23 other people might ask some after that.
24 Can you tell us your full name, please?
25 A. Derek Rodney Lyttle.
157
1 Q. Can I ask you to look on the screen at page [80731],
2 please? This is the start of a statement which was
3 drafted for you, which you have not signed.
4 Have you had a chance to look at it?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Is it accurate?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. I want to ask you to use your memory, despite that, to
9 see what I can get out of you from your recollection of
10 the night of 26th/27th April 1997. All right? If we
11 need to go to the statement and other documents, we
12 will.
13 You were on duty in Jamesons that night I think. Is
14 that right?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Did some commotion draw your attention?
17 A. Yes. Shutters being rattled.
18 Q. Can you help us with what time that was?
19 A. The exact time I just could not state, no.
20 Q. All right. See if we can put it in context. Was this
21 after all the customers had left?
22 A. Yes, after everyone -- the place -- the staff were the
23 only ones left.
24 Q. Right. The impression we are getting is that customers
25 would have left some time after 12.30 and you would not
158
1 have left until some time around 2.30. Can you give us
2 any sort of help about where in the gap between 12.30
3 and 2.30 this would have happened?
4 A. It was probably somewhere in the middle, because we were
5 in the process of cleaning up. We were still --
6 everyone was out, but we were still cleaning up.
7 Q. Where were you in the bar when you heard the shutters
8 being rattled?
9 A. If it was doing -- I would probably have been somewhere
10 round the bar area, probably mopping the floor.
11 Q. If we could have a photograph taken more or less square
12 on to the front of the bar. It is the last photograph
13 in album 3. It will come up on the screen. We see the
14 two bigger windows on the ground floor I think are the
15 windows of the bar itself, are they?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. So somewhere behind those windows were you. Is that
18 right?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. When you say you heard the shutters being rattled, which
21 shutters do you mean?
22 A. There are shutters come down on the main doors.
23 Q. On the double doors --
24 A. On the double doors.
25 Q. -- underneath the Jamesons sign?
159
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. Just shutters being rattled, or swearing or shouting or
3 anything else?
4 A. There was, yes, there was shouting.
5 Q. What was the nature of the shouting? Was it swearing?
6 Was it sectarian?
7 A. It was both.
8 Q. Was this fleeting or did it go on for a bit?
9 A. To me, it was as they passed down the street.
10 Q. Right. Given that, can you give us any help on how many
11 people might have been involved in this?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Right. Can you recall whether you heard more than one
14 voice?
15 A. Oh, yes, there was more than one.
16 Q. Right. So if I put numbers to you, 2, 3, 4, 10, 12?
17 A. I do not know.
18 Q. If this was noise being made by people going down the
19 street, can you tell whether they were running or
20 walking?
21 A. Well, they were running. To me, they were running.
22 Q. Okay. What happened after that?
23 A. Well, at some stage I ended up looking out the toilet
24 window.
25 Q. Uh-huh.
160
1 A. And I could see that there were two people on the
2 ground.
3 Q. Right.
4 A. At some later stage the police -- I could see policemen
5 arriving and so I went out the front door and looked
6 out.
7 Q. Could I ask you what you saw out of the toilet window
8 for a start? Did you just see the police coming?
9 A. Well, whether it was me that seen the police actually
10 coming or it was someone else that looked out, but --
11 I am not 100% sure.
12 Q. Right.
13 A. But I know there was police on the ground whenever
14 I went out the front door.
15 Q. Right. So by the "front door", do you mean those double
16 doors or some other door?
17 A. No, it is actually the top door. There is a bin beside
18 it there. That would be the door I went out.
19 Q. Because we have amazing technology, you can actually
20 draw on this screen with that pen that's in front of
21 you. Can you just mark it for us, please? Okay. We
22 can call that number 1. Right.
23 So were you on your own looking out there, do you
24 think?
25 A. No. There was -- I think at some stage all four of us
161
1 were out there.
2 Q. Okay.
3 A. Either standing inside the door or just outside it.
4 Q. Okay. Doing the best you can then, let's work out what
5 it is you saw. Did you see any policemen?
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Did you see any fighting?
8 A. No.
9 Q. Did you see anybody on the ground?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Right. We can now look at a model. Just to make things
12 more complicated, I will show you a different view of
13 this. If we go round to the right here, you can see
14 where this is taken from. Can we go all the way round,
15 in fact? You can see this is taken from a point by
16 Eastwoods Clothing.
17 So if we stop it there, firstly, can you tell us
18 where you saw police? Again, I need to make this
19 a screen shot so you can mark on it.
20 A. To me, they were coming from the left-hand side of the
21 screen walking towards the junction of Thomas Street.
22 Q. How many police did you see, do you think?
23 A. One or two. I just -- two, probably two.
24 Q. All right. Men or women?
25 A. I thought they were both men.
162
1 Q. Okay. You say you saw no fighting?
2 A. No.
3 Q. But did you see other people who were not police on the
4 street?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. How many people roughly?
7 A. I don't know. It could have been between six to ten.
8 I'm not certain.
9 Q. What were they doing?
10 A. Well, I know there was one girl who was cradling one of
11 the men on the ground.
12 Q. Right?
13 A. There was another two or three beside -- just beside
14 her, standing.
15 Q. Right.
16 A. And there was possibly three or four others more or less
17 in the middle of the road.
18 Q. Okay. Did you see or hear anybody being aggressive?
19 A. There was one particular fella seemed to be a bit
20 agitated, if I put it that way.
21 Q. Let's unpack that a bit. Can you help us with this map
22 about where you saw the person on the ground? Again,
23 you can mark on this screen.
24 A. To me, they were actually lying more in the mouth of
25 Thomas Street. That seems to be Market Street.
163
1 Q. We can go back and turn this round to the right a bit.
2 Tell us where to stop.
3 A. Well ... I would hold it there. To me, there seemed to
4 be one was here.
5 Q. Sorry, we need to give you control again. Right. Okay.
6 A. One seemed to be in this area and the other, now he
7 would have been on the other side of the road, which was
8 again closer to the footpath.
9 Q. Closer to where this photograph is being taken from?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. I see. We will call this number 2, this marking.
12 Were both these people accompanied by anybody?
13 A. No. To me, there was only this person here that was
14 actually being cradled by a female.
15 Q. Okay.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Sorry, which one was that?
17 MR UNDERWOOD: Is that the one you have marked?
18 A. Yes, this --
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Number 2?
20 A. Number 2.
21 MR UNDERWOOD: I'm going to come back in a moment to the
22 person you said was a bit agitated, but I want to just
23 follow through this person you have marked here as
24 number 2.
25 Did you see what happened to him in the end? Did he
164
1 go in an ambulance?
2 A. Yes, I believe both were taken away in an ambulance.
3 Q. Did you see both go to the ambulance on a stretcher or
4 stretchers?
5 A. I couldn't be certain of that.
6 Q. Did you see any violence at all?
7 A. No. There was a bit of pushing and shoving, but no
8 violence --
9 Q. Okay. We will come back --
10 A. -- as such.
11 Q. Go on.
12 A. As such, like. I didn't see anybody punching anybody.
13 Q. Pushing and shoving these people who were on the ground?
14 A. The fella that I mentioned earlier, I seen him actually
15 being pushed away off the scene by --
16 Q. Let's talk about him.
17 A. -- another person.
18 Q. I am sorry. I spoke over you there. You were saying
19 you saw him being pushed off the scene by another
20 person?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Can I take you to page [07792]? This is a note of
23 an interview by a police officer with you. What I want
24 to do is look at the last paragraph on this page. This
25 is 29th May 1997. It says you said to the officer:
165
1 "Went to toilet window. Other staff already there.
2 Looked down Thomas Street. Observed two fellows down on
3 ground."
4 Pausing there, the marking you have just shown on
5 the ground which we have marked number 2, could you have
6 seen that from the toilet window, do you think?
7 A. I believe both were visible from the toilet window, yes.
8 Q. Okay. What you have there is:
9 "Fellow wearing black jacket lying level with
10 Thomas Street, 3 or 4 feet into middle of road."
11 Is that the one you have marked or is that the one
12 you couldn't mark?
13 A. I don't know which of them was wearing the jacket now.
14 I can't remember.
15 Q. All right:
16 "Went to front door as other members of staff went
17 outside."
18 By "front door", do you mean there the one you have
19 just shown us marked on the map?
20 A. Yes.
21 Q. "Stood at door. Looked down street."
22 Here is where we get to the man you might have been
23 talking about a minute ago:
24 "Observed fellow with blue shirt, short ginger hair,
25 heavy build, being pushed away from scene several times
166
1 by other youth - no details of this youth. Fellow in
2 blue shirt shouted up the street something like 'I hope
3 yous are happy now'."
4 Is that what you were talking about a minute ago --
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. -- about an agitated man?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Give us more colour about that, if you will.
9 Is one of these older than the other?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Which is the older one?
12 A. The one in the blue shirt would have been the younger.
13 Q. Right. So it is an older person trying to push him
14 away. Is that it?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Is this the scene: you have a younger person being, if
17 I can use this phrase, mouthy, and the older person
18 trying to get him out of the way?
19 A. That was my impression.
20 Q. Can you help about whether the man with the blue shirt
21 had a tie on?
22 A. I don't think so. I couldn't honestly say, no.
23 Q. Right. Were there any police around them?
24 A. Yes. There was at least one policeman standing in the
25 middle of the road. The policemen to me, they didn't
167
1 come up straight away to those on the ground. They
2 seemed to be distracted.
3 Q. Help us with that. I don't think you saw them -- you
4 didn't see the men go down on the ground, did you?
5 A. No.
6 Q. You didn't see any violence to the men?
7 A. No.
8 Q. So, as you saw these men on ground first off, there were
9 no policemen with them. Is that what you are saying?
10 A. No.
11 Q. What do you think distracted them? What impression do
12 you have about their distraction?
13 A. I don't know. That's what I don't understand.
14 I didn't.
15 Q. What makes you think that the police should have got
16 there earlier?
17 A. I don't -- I am not saying that they should have got
18 there earlier. I am saying they were not there whenever
19 I seen them.
20 Q. Sorry, you said they were distracted as if you thought,
21 had they not been distracted, they would have gone
22 there.
23 A. This is what I don't understand.
24 Q. Okay. You go on in this passage here in the final two
25 lines, [07793]:
168
1 "Two girls observed ..."
2 I think that means you saw two girls:
3 "... shouting, 'Get an ambulance'. Only observed
4 approximately ten to 12 persons running around. Didn't
5 observe anybody hit anyone else. Observed one girl help
6 injured person. Observed one policeman coming across
7 street from direction of building society Ambulance
8 arrived."
9 So all of this happened before the ambulance
10 arrived, did it: all the shouting, you seeing the
11 persons on the ground, the two girls shouting for an
12 ambulance, a policeman -- at least one policeman coming
13 across?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Did you actually see the ambulance?
16 A. No.
17 Q. How do you know one arrived? Did you see --
18 A. Well, I seen the paramedics and I assumed they had come
19 from an ambulance.
20 Q. Can you help us with any more descriptions of anybody
21 you saw?
22 A. No.
23 Q. If we go back to the page before that, [07792], in that
24 final line:
25 "Only observed approximately 10 to 12 persons."
169
1 Can you help us where you saw those 10 to 12
2 persons?
3 A. Well, my line of sight is basically looking straight
4 down there from the door. You can't see either left or
5 right round the corner. So all those would be in that
6 area.
7 Q. Were they pretty well stationary or were they running
8 backwards and forwards or what?
9 A. At this stage, they were, well, what I would call more
10 or less stationary or just milling about.
11 Q. What was the atmosphere? Was it charged, violent,
12 aggressive or what?
13 A. Tense, I would describe it, because, you know, to me --
14 tense.
15 MR UNDERWOOD: Very well. I have no further questions for
16 you. As I say, it may be that others do. Thank you
17 very much.
18 MR O'CONNOR: No questions.
19 MR McGRORY: No questions.
20 Cross-examination by MR GREEN
21 MR GREEN: Just one question, sir.
22 May I just refer you, Mr Sherwood --
23 A. Sorry. My name is not Sherwood.
24 Q. I do apologise. Mr Lyttle, if I could just refer you to
25 the page that's before you there, [07792], and perhaps
170
1 the bottom part of that could be highlighted, please?
2 You are talking there that you:
3 "... stood at the door down the street, observed
4 a fellow with blue shirt, short ginger hair, heavy
5 build, being pushed away from the scene several times by
6 other youth - no details of this youth. Fellow in blue
7 shirt shouted up the street something like 'I hope yous
8 are happy now'."
9 Do you see that?
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. You talked earlier on to Mr Underwood and he was asking
12 questions about the person you saw who was agitated. Is
13 one of the persons you saw agitated one of those two
14 persons you have described there?
15 A. Yes.
16 Q. Were you able to identify, when you looked out on to the
17 street, who was from the Catholic side of the community
18 and who was from the Protestant side of the community
19 without identifying anyone in particular?
20 A. To me, the people -- other than ambulance men and there
21 was one or two policemen I seen, everyone else I seen
22 were, for me, friends of the two men that were on the
23 ground.
24 Q. Therefore, the two people whom you are identifying here
25 or giving descriptions of, in your opinion were they
171
1 with the two people or certainly associating with the
2 two people who were on the ground?
3 A. Yes.
4 MR GREEN: Thank you.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr Mallon?
6 Cross-examination by MR MALLON
7 MR MALLON: When you saw people lying on the ground, at that
8 stage did you see anyone running at them or attacking
9 them or any scuffles in the vicinity?
10 A. No.
11 Q. When you say -- if I can refer you to paragraph 17 of
12 your statement to the Tribunal, [80733], you say at
13 paragraph 16 of that that:
14 "... there was a police presence in the area of the
15 junction."
16 Could you see that clearly yourself?
17 A. Yes, I observed a police -- in the middle of the road,
18 yes, there was ...
19 Q. A police presence. Can you be any more specific than
20 that?
21 A. To me, there was a policeman there and that's it.
22 Q. Right. Can I take you to the next paragraph, 17?
23 "I have been shown a photograph [page 225]. Looking
24 at this photograph I can say that I saw the police
25 officers in the middle of the road. I could not tell
172
1 you how many I saw but it was more than one."
2 Is that your recollection now?
3 A. No. I -- I don't remember. If that's a statement
4 I made at that stage, that was my memory at that stage.
5 Q. Yes. I understand it is some considerable time ago and
6 all you may be left with are impressions, but you have
7 conveyed in this the impression that there was a police
8 presence -- not just one, but a police presence of more
9 than one officer.
10 A. Correct.
11 Q. Now, when you saw -- if I can take you to paragraph 20
12 of that same statement, [80734]:
13 "I do recall a heavy-set man in a blue shirt with
14 ginger hair being pushed away from the scene by another
15 man who seemed to be trying to keep the peace. He was
16 shouting what sounded like anti-Protestant abuse and
17 phrases like, 'Up at us' or 'I hope yous are happy
18 now'."
19 When he was doing that, can you indicate which
20 direction he was looking at? Was he looking towards you
21 or towards any other direction?
22 A. No, I believed he was looking in the direction -- my
23 direction where I was standing. There was more than
24 myself at this stage out the front door of Jamesons Bar.
25 Q. Did you feel that abuse was being directed then towards
173
1 you?
2 A. I took it that abuse was being directed at us, yes.
3 Q. Had you done anything to warrant that abuse?
4 A. No.
5 MR MALLON: I have no further questions. Thank you.
6 MR UNDERWOOD: Nothing arising. Thank you.
7 Questions from THE CHAIRMAN
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Just one question. You have spoken of
9 looking through the lavatory window and others have
10 spoken of that as well. How many of you could look
11 through the window at the same time?
12 A. Just one.
13 Q. So at some stage, various of you must have given place
14 to another?
15 A. Correct.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much.
17 MR UNDERWOOD: Thank you very much, Mr Lyttle.
18 (The witness withdrew)
19 MR UNDERWOOD: That concludes the six witnesses for today,
20 sir. There is a matter which Mr McComb wishes to raise
21 about one of his clients due to give evidence tomorrow,
22 and I know he wants to raise it in chambers.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Very well. We will do that. We will stay
24 here but perhaps the public will leave us now, please.
25 (4.14 pm)
174
1 (Public hearing adjourned until 10.30 tomorrow morning)
2 --oo0oo--
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
175
1 I N D E X
2
3
MR COLIN MARTIN HULL (sworn) ..................... 1
4 Examination by MR UNDERWOOD ............... 1
Cross-examination by MR ADAIR ............. 28
5 Cross-examination by MR McGRORY ........... 47
Cross-examination by MR MALLON ............ 48
6 Cross-examination by MR WOLFE ............. 50
Cross-examination by MR McCOMB ............ 59
7
MR DERMOT VINCENT McNEICE (sworn) ................ 64
8 Examination by MR UNDERWOOD ............... 64
Cross-examination by MR ADAIR ............. 76
9 Cross-examination by MR MALLON ............ 84
Cross-examination by MR WOLFE ............. 87
10
MS BEVERLEY JEAN IRWIN (sworn) ................... 93
11 Examination by MR UNDERWOOD ............... 93
Cross-examination by MR McGRORY ........... 123
12
MR STEPHEN JOSEPH THORNBURY ...................... 129
13 (affirmed)
Examination by MR UNDERWOOD ............... 129
14 Cross-examination by MR O'HARE ............ 139
Cross-examination by MR MALLON ............ 143
15
MISS JULIE SHERWOOD (sworn) ...................... 145
16 Examination by MR UNDERWOOD ............... 145
Cross-examination by MR McGRORY ........... 153
17 Cross-examination by MR MALLON ............ 156
18 MR DEREK RODNEY LYTTLE (sworn) ................... 157
Examination by MR UNDERWOOD ............... 157
19 Cross-examination by MR GREEN ............. 170
Cross-examination by MR MALLON ............ 172
20 Questions from THE CHAIRMAN ............... 174
21
22
23
24
25
176
