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Hearing: 13th January 2009, day 1
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PUBLIC INQUIRY INTO THE DEATH OF
ROBERT HAMILL
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Held at:
Interpoint
20-24 York Street
Belfast
on Tuesday, 13th January 2009
commencing at 10.30 am
Day 1
1 Tuesday, 13th January 2009
2 (10.30 am)
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Before I open the proceedings, I will invite
4 the legal representatives appearing before us today to
5 identify themselves.
6 MR UNDERWOOD : I appear for the Inquiry with my learned
7 junior, Miss Anderson.
8 MR WOLFE: I appear for the PSNI. My name is Wolfe.
9 I appear instructed by the Public Inquiries Liaison Unit
10 of the PSNI with my learned friend Mr Richard Ferguson
11 QC, who is not present today.
12 MR ADAIR: My name is Charles Adair. I appear for
13 a substantial number of the persons in this case along
14 with my learned friend Mr Kevin O'Hare. We are
15 instructed by Edwards & Co.
16 MR McGRORY: My name is Barra McGrory. I appear for the
17 Hamill family, leading Mr Eugene McKenna. We are
18 instructed by PJ McGrory & Co solicitors.
19 MS DINSMORE: My name is Margaret Ann Dinsmore. I appear
20 with my learned friend Mr Jim Mallon. I am instructed
21 by John P Hagan and I appear on behalf of Eleanor and
22 Robert Atkinson.
23 MR EMMERSON: My name is Ben Emmerson. I appear with my
24 learned friend Maggie O'Kane. I appear for the Public
25 Prosecution Service instructed by the Director of Public
1
1 Prosecutions, Northern Ireland.
2 MR GREEN: My name is Richard Green. I appear for
3 Marc Hobson with my learned friend Mr Conor Gillespie
4 and we are instructed by Gus Campbell solicitors.
5 MR O'CONNOR: My name is Hugh O'Connor. I appear for
6 Michael Irwin and I appear instructed by
7 Russell Jones & Walker solicitors.
8 MR MCKILLOP: My name is Thomas McKillop. I appear on
9 behalf of Gerard Maguire and Witnesses D, E and F
10 instructed by O'Connor & Moriarty.
11 MR BERRY: My name is Greg Berry. I appear with Mr Daly for
12 Andrea McKee, and we are instructed by
13 Arthur Downey & Co.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you all. I hope you will forgive me if
15 I make some mistake about the names. It may take me
16 a little time to remember them all.
17 When I opened this Inquiry in May 2005, I explained
18 it had been established by the then Secretary of State
19 for Northern Ireland, the Right Honourable
20 Paul Murphy MP, under section 44 of the Police (Northern
21 Ireland) Act 1988 to implement the recommendation of the
22 retired Canadian Supreme Court judge, Peter Cory,
23 following an investigation by him into a number of
24 deaths which have occurred in Northern Ireland, among
25 them the death of Robert Hamill.
2
1 This was an investigation which was made in
2 consequence of an agreement between the British and
3 Irish governments that his death, among others, should
4 be looked at anew.
5 I little thought then, nor, I believe, did any of
6 us, that it would be more than three years before we could
7 begin hearing evidence and I think it important,
8 therefore, to explain the causes of the delay.
9 Firstly, the volume of preparatory work which had to
10 be undertaken by the Inquiry team was very considerable.
11 Documents had to be obtained from various sources.
12 These had to be considered and decisions made about who
13 should be interviewed and what topics they should be
14 asked about, and thereafter interviewing and taking
15 statements from over 200 people. Some idea can be
16 gained of the size of the task from the fact that it was
17 thought appropriate to give those parties on whom the
18 papers were served three months in order to consider
19 them before any hearings began.
20 Next, the Inquiry received many applications from
21 witnesses and potential witnesses seeking anonymity.
22 These all had to be considered and decisions made.
23 A substantial number of serving and former police
24 officers applied for anonymity and screening and there
25 was a two-day hearing by the full Panel in mid May 2006,
3
1 when we considered a great deal of material, both
2 written and oral.
3 At the beginning of August, in a lengthy ruling,
4 we refused those applications in all but one case. Our
5 decision was judicially reviewed here in Northern
6 Ireland and the decision of the court, given subsequent
7 to a hearing held at the end of August, was that our
8 decision should be quashed.
9 The Inquiry appealed against this decision to the
10 Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland and our appeal was
11 rejected. Thereafter, the Inquiry sought and was
12 granted leave to appeal to the House of Lords. Our
13 appeal was successful, judgment being given on 31st July
14 in the following year, 2007. The decision of the House
15 of Lords left a issue still to be dealt with by the
16 High Court in Northern Ireland, as to whether we were
17 entitled to reach the decisions we did on the evidence
18 before us. In the event, that issue was not pursued,
19 so that our decision then became effective.
20 While the hearing of our appeal to the House of
21 Lords was awaited, and as our investigations proceeded,
22 doubts arose as to whether our terms of reference would
23 enable us to consider all those matters which we
24 consider are relevant if we are to respond properly to
25 the public's legitimate interest in what happened when
4
1 the attack on Robert Hamill was investigated.
2 A request was made on behalf of the Hamill family at
3 the beginning of January 2007 for an extension of our
4 terms of reference. This was refused by the Secretary
5 of State of Northern Ireland nearly fifteen months later
6 on 20th March 2008. This decision was successfully
7 challenged by the Hamill family by way of judicial
8 review on the ground that he had not applied the correct
9 test. His decision was quashed on 1st July 2008 and it
10 was necessary then for him to consider the matter
11 afresh.
12 On 4th November, the Secretary of State's new
13 decision was communicated to the parties. His decision
14 remained unchanged, though it could not be suggested
15 that, in reaching it, he had applied the wrong test.
16 The bone of contention had related to the extent, if
17 at all, to which the Inquiry was entitled to look into
18 the role played by the Director of Public Prosecutions
19 in relation to the investigation which followed
20 Robert Hamill's death. However, the Secretary of State
21 has adopted a wide but entirely legitimate
22 interpretation of our powers under our terms of
23 reference as they stand. Our hope and expectation is
24 that we shall be able to look critically at those
25 matters which we think are germane to the legitimate
5
1 interest of the public in relation to the investigation.
2 If, though, we find we have to stop short in a way which
3 leaves important questions unconsidered, it will be our
4 duty to say so in our report.
5 Until the matters which were the subject of
6 litigation were resolved, we were not in a position to
7 begin these hearings, nor, once they were resolved,
8 could we have begun hearings after only a week or two.
9 Time had to be given for the parties to prepare their
10 cases with their eye on a fixed date in order that they
11 could make arrangements about other litigation so as to
12 avoid conflict with other commitments.
13 Moreover, the nature of advocacy is such that
14 preparation has to be approximate in time to the hearing
15 of the case being prepared. Furthermore, those affected
16 by the Secretary of State's interpretation of the terms
17 of reference were entitled to an opportunity to consider
18 that interpretation before the hearings commenced.
19 There is, though, a brighter side to the delay.
20 Since this Inquiry was appointed, there has been
21 a gradual, but significant, improvement in the way
22 things are in Northern Ireland. There are anxieties
23 still, but there is now a prevailing feeling of hope for
24 a more peaceful future here. More and more people feel
25 they have had enough of the old ways and want a life
6
1 free from the fear of terrorism, and there is a growing
2 feeling that grievances have a better hope of being
3 resolved in the political forum than by acts of
4 violence.
5 I can remember a small illustration of the fact that
6 things were changing when we came to Belfast in
7 April 2005 to inspect possible premises in which to hold
8 our hearings. It was in the morning and we called in at
9 a cafe for coffee. In the window, which extended from
10 floor to ceiling, were sitting two police officers in
11 uniform, a man and a woman, looking out on to the street
12 as they drank their coffee.
13 The Belfast man who was conducting us to the
14 premises made the remark to me, "You wouldn't have seen
15 that in Belfast six months ago." I think it is worth
16 repeating what I said when I opened this Inquiry. In
17 setting the Inquiry the Secretary of State said, in
18 explaining his purpose, "It is essential that all people
19 in Northern Ireland can have confidence in the integrity
20 of the State and its institutions. Where there are
21 serious allegations of wrongdoing, it is important that
22 facts are properly established. It is important that we
23 find a way in Northern Ireland of dealing with the past
24 in the way that recognises the pain associated with it
25 without allowing it to destroy all hope of a better
7
1 future."
2 Perhaps we may be permitted to add a few words of
3 our own about the hope of a better future. Looking back
4 at the past, and particularly seeking to appreciate its
5 impact on present experience, can help us to a better
6 understanding of the present and the future, but if all
7 we do is to look at the past, we are ignoring both the
8 present and the future.
9 A society which is so busy remembering only past
10 conflicts that it ignores the present and does not
11 anticipate its future life is a society without hope.
12 This is because the very essence of hope lies in having
13 a positive attitude to the future. It is our hope that
14 our work in this Inquiry may do a little to help people
15 look forward with hope. If mutual trust and respect can
16 be built among the people of Northern Ireland, hope is
17 likely to be based on a surer foundation.
18 My colleagues with whom I am conducting this
19 Inquiry, are the Reverend Baroness Richardson, a former
20 Moderator of the Free Churches' Council of England and
21 Wales, and Sir John Evans, formerly Chief Constable of
22 Devon and Cornwall.
23 After practising at the Bar in England and Wales,
24 I became first a Circuit judge and then a High Court
25 judge. I am now retired.
8
1 None of us have has met or held any communication
2 with one another before our appointment to this Inquiry.
3 More detail is available on the Inquiry's website.
4 The Secretary and Solicitor to the Inquiry is
5 Judi Kemish. She is a civil servant. Prior to her
6 appointment to this Inquiry she had not been involved,
7 in the course of her work, in the affairs of Northern
8 Ireland. Our proceedings will be reported on the
9 Inquiry's website.
10 Our terms of reference are as follows: "to inquire
11 into the death of Robert Hamill with a view to
12 determining whether any wrongful act or omission by or
13 within the Royal Ulster Constabulary facilitated his
14 death or obstructed the investigation of it, or whether
15 attempts were made to do so; whether any such act or
16 omission was intentional or negligent; whether the
17 investigation of his death was carried out with due
18 diligence; and to make recommendations."
19 The need for this Inquiry to be set up by Government
20 arises from three facts. Firstly, the agreement between
21 the British and Irish Governments and the recommendation
22 by Justice Cory; secondly, the rule that only an Inquiry
23 set up by Government under an Act of Parliament would
24 have power to pursue the appropriate investigations in
25 relation to Robert Hamill's death; thirdly, it was
9
1 necessary that the work of the Inquiry should be
2 facilitated by proper funding.
3 Having said this, it is important to point out that
4 we are independent of Government or any other body or
5 person. We control the conduct of this Inquiry. We
6 decide what evidence we shall receive. The decisions
7 and recommendations which we make following the
8 conclusion of the Inquiry, and which will be set out in
9 our report to the Secretary of State, will be ours and
10 ours alone.
11 We are quite independent in all these matters of the
12 Northern Ireland Office, a fact which the officials from
13 the Northern Ireland Office have been at pains to make
14 clear in our dealings with them. Nor shall we allow
15 ourselves to be led or improperly influenced by others,
16 whoever they may be.
17 At the outset of these hearings, we should like to
18 express again our sincere condolences to the fiancee and
19 children of the late Robert Hamill and to his family for
20 his untimely death. As well as being a matter which has
21 given considerable public interest and concern, none of
22 us should lose sight of the fact that Robert Hamill's
23 death was and is a matter of sadness and grief to those
24 who mourn him. We express the confidant hope that
25 no-one having business before this Inquiry will forget
10
1 this and that we shall all remember that whether
2 Robert Hamill was of one faith or another is irrelevant
3 to the fact that he was a fellow human being.
4 We are very conscious of the many emotions to which
5 the death of Robert Hamill has given rise and we repeat
6 that our overriding concern in this Inquiry will be to
7 do all we can to ascertain where the truth lies
8 concerning the issues raised by our terms of reference.
9 The evidence and the issues to be considered will be
10 prepared and presented by Counsel for the Inquiry.
11 Theirs is a neutral role, as is appropriate for
12 lawyers whose task is not to argue a case but, firstly,
13 to place before us all the evidence and considerations
14 which have any relevance to the issues of fact which we
15 shall have to decide, and, secondly, to assist us also
16 to decide what recommendations it is appropriate for us
17 to make to the Secretary of State.
18 We should like to stress that we will embark on our
19 task without any preconception as to where the truth
20 lies. We are anxious to do all we reasonably can to
21 discover that. The evidence placed before us may vary
22 in its quality, but we are sure that it is only by
23 considering and weighing all the evidence which has
24 relevance to our terms of reference that we can properly
25 perform our task of seeking after the truth.
11
1 These proceedings are unlike a civil or criminal
2 trial in which there are two sides with each side
3 calling its own witnesses and advancing its own case.
4 It seems certain that we shall have conflicting evidence
5 upon various issues. Counsel to the Inquiry will
6 present all the evidence and test it so as to assist us
7 to reach our conclusions. From time to time, we may ask
8 questions ourselves. Interested parties, though, will
9 not be permitted, as a matter of course, to question
10 witnesses, still less to call their own witnesses.
11 Advocates who wish questions to be put to witnesses
12 which are not dealt with in their statements should
13 speak in advance about them to Leading Counsel to the
14 Inquiry, Mr Underwood. If he agrees to pursue them,
15 that may be sufficient, but if he does not agree, or if
16 the advocate wishes to put the questions himself, the
17 matter can be referred to me and I shall rule on it.
18 Such questions will follow questions by Counsel to the
19 Inquiry, who, at their conclusion, will be permitted to
20 ask further questions.
21 Although I have said that additional questions
22 should be raised with Mr Underwood in sufficient time
23 for him to consider them, I accept there will still be
24 cases when some line of questions is not foreseen and
25 arises only as a result of what the witnesses say in the
12
1 witness box. In such a case, if the advocate affected
2 needs time to consider the position and discuss it with
3 Mr Underwood, I shall listen sympathetically to
4 an application for a brief adjournment -- minutes, not
5 hours -- to facilitate that. I hope advocates will
6 realise that after a good many years of experience in
7 the courts as an advocate and a judge, I am likely to be
8 able to take a realistic view of how long is needed.
9 If anyone should seek himself to call a witness
10 rather than that he be called by Counsel to the Inquiry,
11 there will need to be very good justification for this.
12 Save for material protected by public interest
13 immunity, the statements of the witnesses to be called
14 or read by Counsel to the Inquiry have been provided to
15 the interested parties or their legal advisers in
16 advance to assist them in their preparation. This has
17 been done in the interests of fairness to all of them so
18 that they should know, so far as possible, what is the
19 general tenor of the evidence to be adduced.
20 To allow interested parties to call their own
21 witnesses in the absence of very strong reason would
22 militate against this and might delay proceedings if
23 a new matter were to be introduced in this way, and it
24 became apparent, as a consequence, that a witness
25 already called might have had something to say on the
13
1 point and so had to be recalled.
2 Although it is not my intention to adopt
3 an inflexible approach, nor shall I be prepared to
4 permit a free-for-all. I shall be vigilant to restrict
5 questions to those which are relevant to our terms of
6 reference and to prevent repetition and long-windedness.
7 There is a great deal of material to be considered
8 and it can be divided into separate topics.
9 Mr Underwood will not, therefore, simply make one
10 opening speech, but will open each new topic as we come
11 to it. This, I hope, will help to crystallise the
12 thoughts of all of us and I am sure will be of
13 assistance to the members of the public who wish to
14 follow the whole or any part of the proceedings.
15 Advocates who wish to make a brief opening speech
16 may do so. Some will not be concerned with every topic
17 and I suggest that any opening speeches be directed to
18 the particular topic about to be dealt with by the
19 evidence. This means that we may hear more than one
20 opening speech from some advocates.
21 I am sure that advocates will remember the purpose
22 of an opening speech, which is to help the Panel to
23 understand what are the issues and to follow them, and
24 not to seek to address a wider audience. This would
25 still be the case when it comes to closing speeches, but
14
1 at that stage, what is said to us in the light of the
2 evidence we have all heard will plainly be of interest
3 to the public at large.
4 When I opened this Inquiry, I said that a witness
5 who gives evidence at this Inquiry will not be obliged
6 to answer any question if the answer might incriminate
7 him or her in respect of any criminal or police
8 disciplinary offence of which he or she has not been
9 convicted. This dispensation will no longer apply in
10 the case of any answer which might incriminate the
11 witness in respect of any criminal offence.
12 This is because the Attorney General has given
13 an undertaking that neither the evidence a witness gives
14 before the Inquiry, whether orally or by written
15 statement, nor any document or information produced by
16 him or her to the Inquiry will be used in evidence
17 against him or her in any criminal proceedings, except
18 in proceedings where he or she is charged with having
19 given false evidence in the course of the Inquiry or
20 having conspired with or procured others to do so.
21 The Chief Constable of the Police Service of
22 Northern Ireland has given a limited undertaking in the
23 case of police disciplinary proceedings. Any evidence
24 given by a police officer which falls short of providing
25 evidence of serious misconduct will not be used against
15
1 him or any other serving officer. This undertaking has
2 called for a reconsideration of what I said on the
3 question of immunity for police officers when I opened
4 the Inquiry.
5 The privilege against self-incrimination in relation
6 to criminal proceedings became part of the Common Law
7 long before any codes with statutory force came into
8 being in relation to disciplinary proceedings against
9 police officers. Such proceedings relate to
10 an officer's employment. They can have serious
11 consequences to him, but they are not and cannot be
12 equated with criminal proceedings.
13 The privilege against self-incrimination does not
14 extend at Common Law to police officers facing
15 disciplinary proceedings. On reflection, I have
16 concluded that there can be no warrant, by extending this
17 privilege to officers facing disciplinary proceedings,
18 for according to them a privilege which does not extend
19 to those in other occupations who may face disciplinary
20 proceedings relating to their conduct in employment,
21 which, in their cases also, have serious consequences
22 for them.
23 Moreover, it would, in my judgment, run the risk of
24 frustrating our attempts to get at the truth and so
25 fulfil our terms of reference. Accordingly, there will
16
1 be no dispensation for serving police officers in
2 relation to answering questions whose answers could put
3 them at risk in relation to disciplinary proceedings.
4 They have their immunity given by the Chief
5 Constable within the terms of his undertaking, but this
6 will not affect the requirement on them to answer
7 relevant questions which they may be asked.
8 A word now about the proceedings. Subject to
9 retaining some need for flexibility to meet
10 circumstances which may arise, our aim is to sit on
11 Tuesdays to Fridays, generally from 10.30 am to 4.30 pm
12 breaking off for lunch from 1.00 pm to 2.00 pm. On
13 Fridays, we may sit earlier so as to rise earlier. We
14 propose to sit for three weeks at a time with a one-week
15 break between each stint. The time allotted to the
16 various stages of these hearings and the intervals
17 between them are set out in a schedule to be found on
18 our website and have been posted up on the notice board
19 at these premises. Each stage of the proceedings will
20 follow after the interval shown in the schedule. So,
21 for example, if the evidence takes less or longer, then
22 the scheduled time for the next stage will be
23 correspondingly brought forward or delayed. If there
24 should be good reason to do so, we may have to consider
25 whether to depart in other ways from the schedule.
17
1 I say something now about our own preparations, that
2 is the Panel. To prepare ourselves for the Inquiry we
3 visited Portadown in January 2005, when we walked around
4 the streets forming the crossroads where or near to
5 which Robert Hamill received his injuries. We looked
6 particularly at sight lines from various points. We did
7 not announce our visit, because we wished to see the
8 site without attracting attention and without
9 distraction.
10 We shall make a further visit to Portadown in the
11 presence of interested parties and their legal advisers
12 to see whatever they wish to draw to our attention. We
13 shall also see the Land Rover which was used on the
14 night in question, or one similar, to see what could be
15 seen from it at different locations and what could be
16 heard inside it of what was going on outside.
17 We are all comparative strangers to Northern Ireland
18 and in particular to Portadown and its ethos. I had
19 never visited Northern Ireland until after my
20 appointment to this Inquiry. Bearing this in mind, we
21 have sought to learn something of the troubled
22 background against which the events of 27th April 1997
23 and subsequent investigations were played out and the
24 continuing turmoil after that, in order, as we hope,
25 better to understand the events placed before us. The
18
1 material we have read was not all written from the same
2 standpoint.
3 We shall also read the witnesses' statements before
4 they give evidence. When we come to the fact-finding
5 exercise, we shall take account both of what we hear
6 from the witnesses and what they say in their
7 statements. Whether in the case of any witness we gain
8 more assistance from his or her oral evidence or written
9 statement about a particular matter is not something we
10 shall decide upon until we begin to consider our
11 findings.
12 Let me add that in an Inquiry such as this there are
13 no formal rules of evidence, and we shall also take into
14 consideration hearsay evidence. We shall, of course,
15 remind ourselves of the limited value which hearsay
16 evidence may often, but not necessarily, have.
17 Finally, before I call upon Mr Underwood, may
18 I express the thanks of all of us at the Inquiry for the
19 willing cooperation we have received and for the
20 goodwill shown by so many in our work in preparing these
21 hearings.
22 Mr Underwood?
23 Opening speech by MR UNDERWOOD
24 MR UNDERWOOD: Sir, I think it is now well-known that in the
25 early hours of 27th April 1997 Robert Hamill was
19
1 assaulted in the centre of Portadown. He was a Catholic
2 and his attackers were Protestant. The crossroads where
3 the assault took place was a known flash point for
4 sectarian violence. An RUC Land Rover with four
5 officers in it was stationed nearby to maintain public
6 order. Nonetheless, Mr Hamill suffered severe head
7 injuries and died from those without regaining
8 consciousness on 8th May 1997.
9 By 10th May 1997, the RUC had the identities of
10 a number of Protestants who were said to have murdered
11 Mr Hamill. Further, it had evidence that one of the
12 Reserve Constables in the Land Rover, Mr Atkinson, had
13 protected one of those by telling him to get rid of his
14 clothing and by keeping him informed about the
15 investigation.
16 Nonetheless, no-one has been convicted of murdering
17 Mr Hamill and only one person was convicted of affray
18 arising out of the attack on him.
19 Reserve Constable Atkinson was eventually charged in
20 relation to a conspiracy arising out of the alleged
21 tip-offs that he gave, but he was not prosecuted to
22 trial. This Inquiry was established as part of the
23 peace process and its terms of reference have been set
24 out in the Chairman's opening remarks. We would
25 respectfully suggest that those terms of reference
20
1 recognise two areas of public concern arising out of
2 Mr Hamill's death. Very broadly, the first is whether
3 the RUC officers in the Land Rover should be in any way
4 responsible for the death.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: I wonder if I can interrupt you? There is
6 something amiss with the sound, certainly on the bench.
7 I don't know if other people's speakers are working.
8 The sound from that speaker has disappeared.
9 SIR JOHN EVANS: And our screens have gone off.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: I think, Mr Underwood, we will rise while
11 this is sorted out.
12 (11.13 am)
13 (A short break)
14 (11.30 am)
15 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr Underwood?
16 MR UNDERWOOD: I do apologise for that, sir. I think,
17 despite all the excellence of our technology, something
18 came unplugged.
19 I was saying that the terms of reference appear to
20 recognise two areas of public concern which arose out of
21 Mr Hamill's death.
22 Very broadly, the first of those is whether the RUC
23 officers in the Land Rover should be regarded in any way
24 responsible for his death.
25 The second is whether the investigation into his
21
1 death was inhibited in some way by the wrongdoing,
2 incompetence or lack of due diligence on the part of the
3 RUC, or lack of due diligence on the part of any other
4 person or body who is connected with the investigation.
5 Mr Hamill's tragic death occurred at a time when
6 sections of the Catholic community in Northern Ireland
7 had great mistrust of policing and the criminal justice
8 system in general. Mr Hamill's death and the failures
9 of the State to secure convictions arising out of it
10 were emblematic of that mistrust for many. They
11 resonated with the perception that the RUC was unwilling
12 to assist Catholics generally, that the RUC and the
13 criminal justice system were reckless about the
14 investigation and prosecution of those who attacked
15 Catholics, and that the system protected RUC officers.
16 The Inquiry intends to shine a powerful and unbiased
17 spotlight on the public concerns that gave rise to it
18 being established so that the truth can be revealed.
19 The truth may show that the mistrust about the RUC and
20 the criminal justice system was unjustified. If, on the
21 other hand, the spotlight uncovers failures, whether on
22 the part of individuals or organisations, then
23 recommendations can be made for the future.
24 We hope by those means the Inquiry will make
25 a contribution to the break with the past that the peace
22
1 process already represents and that Mr Hamill will not
2 have died in vain.
3 To that end, the Inquiry will have the advantage of
4 hearing a large number of witnesses. It will be shown
5 several thousand documents. It will have to consider
6 a number of questions, some of which will require the
7 resolution of a variety of competing accounts. It would
8 be, I think, oppressive if I attempted to open every
9 issue and every conflict of evidence at any stage.
10 Equally, an opening which attempted to set out all the
11 facts in one bite would be indigestible. As you
12 foreshadowed, Sir, what I propose to do is introduce
13 matters in several stages.
14 Before I get to any of the detail, I am firstly
15 going to give a brief overview of the main events which
16 the Inquiry is likely to consider, so as to give some
17 context. Secondly, I will move to suggest some of the
18 principle questions which, I hope, the Panel may find
19 helpful in determining and to determine the issues set
20 out by the terms of reference. Then I will turn to more
21 detail, which, as I say, you foreshadowed in your
22 opening remarks, sir, by doing mini-openings in stages,
23 as it were, before each group of witnesses.
24 Only when the evidence has fully emerged will
25 I attempt to marshall that evidence by reference to any
23
1 issues which appear to suggest themselves.
2 Before undertaking the first of those stages,
3 I propose to say a few words about the approach which
4 I and my team have adopted so far. I should make it
5 clear how my role and that of the Panel differs.
6 I am, of course, part of a team of lawyers who have
7 gathered and sifted the evidence so far to be produced
8 to the Panel. My task, together with Miss Anderson, is
9 to present that evidence as fully and clearly as
10 possible by questioning witnesses, drawing attention to
11 documents. I will suggest what questions may usefully
12 be considered, and in due course I may diffidently
13 suggest how they might be answered. My function is to
14 permit you to reach the most informed conclusion
15 possible.
16 You have not heard, I know, any evidence beforehand.
17 You will only have read documents and statements that
18 have been available, or will be available, to the
19 lawyers for interested parties and witnesses. You are
20 likely, I know, to read those materials shortly before
21 relevant witnesses are called so they are fresh in the
22 mind.
23 Your function, of course, is to reach conclusions on
24 the material that is to be made public. You will decide
25 what questions you consider to be relevant, despite any
24
1 suggestions that I may make and, of course, you alone
2 will answer them. No-one should regard anything I say
3 or do during the course of the hearings as being said or
4 done on your behalf.
5 So far as the events of the night are concerned,
6 I will seek to adduce as much live evidence as possible
7 in order for you to decide what happened. Insofar as
8 the murder investigation is concerned, I will restrict
9 myself to evidence about the investigation or
10 investigations which, in fact, took place, so as to
11 enable you to decide whether they or it was flawed and,
12 if so, how and why. My team has resisted the temptation
13 to re-investigate the murder ourselves as being outside
14 the terms of reference.
15 In addition to the murder investigation, there have
16 already been a number of investigations into the conduct
17 of the RUC, which I will describe a little later. Those
18 investigations have uncovered materials and those are
19 helpful to the Inquiry I apprehend. Some of them will
20 be used in evidence insofar as they are helpful.
21 Insofar as those investigations reached conclusions,
22 no doubt you will wish to be informed what those
23 conclusions were. Equally, no doubt you will not
24 consider yourself bound by them.
25 The terms of the reference are not restricted, as,
25
1 again, you foreshadowed in your opening remarks, sir, to
2 an investigation of the behaviour of the RUC and its
3 officers. As the Secretary of State has pointed out,
4 the due diligence part of it also entails consideration
5 of the behaviour of any other person or body involved in
6 or who may have contributed to, or whose actions relate
7 to the investigation into Robert Hamill's murder. The
8 Inquiry is therefore required to investigate whether
9 such behaviour involved due diligence.
10 There is reason to believe that the office of the
11 Director of Public Prosecutions had such a relationship
12 with the investigation. To the extent that
13 prosecutorial decisions shaped the investigation into
14 Robert Hamill's death, the facts relating to those
15 decisions must also be considered to ascertain whether
16 they were made with due diligence at the beginning.
17 The Inquiry is not obliged or even entitled to
18 question the correctness of any prosecutorial decision.
19 To the extent that the Inquiry is required to find facts
20 that have already been considered by the DPP, it must
21 reach its own conclusions, whether or not those
22 conclusions are different to those reached by the DPP.
23 As will become clear, there is reason to believe
24 that the DPP's prosecutorial's decisions about the
25 alleged murderers and about Reserve Constable Atkinson
26
1 may have shaped the investigation into the murder and so
2 must be considered.
3 The evidence which I lead and the submissions which
4 I may make on the evidence in due course may suggest
5 that some individuals have acted in a way which, if this
6 were a court, could amount to a finding of guilt or
7 a civil wrong, but, if so, that will be an incidental
8 effect of fulfilling our terms of reference.
9 I want to emphasise this is not a criminal or civil
10 trial, as, again, you foreshadowed, sir. It is
11 a process designed to reveal the truth about the matters
12 which are set out in the terms of reference. The
13 Inquiry will not regard itself as being bound by your
14 rules of evidence or presumptions. It is only realistic
15 to acknowledge that meeting the terms of reference poses
16 a number of challenges. Those include these.
17 Firstly, the tragic death of Robert Hamill occurred
18 over ten years ago now. It resulted from an assault
19 that occurred in a chaotic situation at night-time when
20 many of those involved had been drinking. No-one has
21 been convicted of murder. Investigations into the
22 murder and also into an allegation of neglect of duty on
23 the part of the RUC officers in the Land Rover were both
24 dogged by the unwillingness of witnesses to come forward
25 or to give evidence. Important aspects of the RUC
27
1 investigation were unfortunately not recorded, either on
2 paper or on computer. A number of witnesses who may
3 have given evidence have suffered serious illnesses
4 which have compromised their ability to recall events,
5 and, indeed, some have sadly died.
6 We can't rule out the possibility that evidence will
7 be given with a sectarian slant, either deliberately or
8 innocently. Finally, there is the prospect that
9 a number of individuals conspired to prevent the full
10 picture of the murder emerging.
11 In order to rise to these challenges, my team has
12 undertaken a number of steps. They include these.
13 Firstly, we have interviewed well over 200
14 prospective witnesses to ascertain what they know about
15 matters into which the Panel will be enquiring. Then we
16 have endeavoured to ask prospective witnesses in
17 interview about matters which appear to call for
18 explanation by them, so as to get the fullest possible
19 explanation from them.
20 We have, of course, secured limited immunity from
21 prosecution and in respect of disciplinary matters
22 relating to police officers. We have used powers of
23 compulsion in order to overcome the resistance of some
24 people to participate in the Inquiry process. We have
25 resisted blanket calls for anonymity and for screening
28
1 by some of those most involved in the matters which fall
2 for consideration.
3 We have combed through tens of thousands of
4 documents in preparation for this hearing and we have
5 welcomed suggestions concerning the way in which we
6 should present the evidence. We have been particularly
7 assisted by representations from a number of parties
8 including British Irish Rights Watch and by reading
9 submissions made at earlier stage by the Committee for
10 the Administration of Justice, as well as lines of
11 enquiry offered by interested parties and witnesses.
12 We have also commissioned independent police and
13 medical reports.
14 In the event then, I propose to call over 150
15 witnesses and to read statements from some others.
16 Statements will be read, of course, subject to what the
17 Panel decides, only where the evidence in them appears
18 to be both uncontroversial and also likely to be helpful
19 in establishing facts. I will draw attention in
20 addition to a considerable number of documents we have
21 distilled from all the materials we have gathered.
22 As I have said, when we come to deliver closing
23 submissions, I will seek to draw the strains of the
24 evidence together by reference to the questions which
25 appear to arise.
29
1 I should make it clear that my Inquiry team has
2 looked at a considerable amount of material in order to
3 decide what evidence to present. We have discarded some
4 material as irrelevant. That includes a number of
5 witness statements which, in the interest of fairness,
6 we have nonetheless served on interested parties.
7 A very few witnesses have been granted anonymity and
8 screening. They will give their evidence under
9 codenames. When they do that, the chamber will be
10 closed to the public. Their evidence will be relayed by
11 sound only to a room in which the public will be able to
12 follow it. Where documents contain details such as
13 names and addresses that are not referable to the
14 Inquiry, they have been blacked out. Otherwise, it is
15 our intention to conduct the hearing entirely openly.
16 When a witness is called, he or she is likely to be
17 asked to adopt the witness statement or the expert
18 report which they have made for the purpose of the
19 Inquiry. If so, that will be taken as read, and I will
20 be asking supplemental questions about important and
21 contentious matters. The more important and contentious
22 the witness is likely to be, the more I am likely to
23 want to elicit the material rather than rely on the
24 statement.
25 The questions will take into account lines of
30
1 questioning suggested by other witnesses and interested
2 parties. If other lawyers wish to ask further
3 questions, then, again, as you said in your opening
4 remarks, sir, they need to seek your permission.
5 This is a paperless Inquiry. We aim to use
6 technology to the extent it will assist. It may be
7 helpful if I spend a little time explaining what
8 technological aids we have and to demonstrate them quite
9 briefly.
10 The material documents -- that is all those
11 documents which we have sifted and which we think may
12 have some relevance to anything that is of interest in
13 relation to the terms of reference -- have been scanned.
14 They have been given numbers. They can being called up
15 by the document number and, for preparation purposes,
16 the interested parties and some witnesses have been
17 given search facilities.
18 During the hearing, documents to be relied on will
19 be shown on the screens in the chamber. We all have
20 large screens in front of us. For example, we can see
21 page [06080]. The technology we have in relation to
22 documents gives us a number of facilities. For example,
23 the person who has control can highlight, they can zoom
24 and they can magnify part. There is also a split-screen
25 facility for documents and each of the features we have
31
1 just seen can be applied to both documents on the split
2 screen.
3 To take an example, we could have page [09135] up on
4 one side and [09630] up on the other side. This gives
5 us the facility to highlight parts that one might want
6 to compare. As I say, this is a facility, among many,
7 which are in the hands of those who have control of the
8 system. The control of technology is generally in the
9 hands of the experts to my left. It can be and will be
10 given to witnesses or, indeed, anyone else in the
11 chamber with a touch-screen who, as it were, has the
12 stand at the time. So a lawyer who is examining the
13 witness can have control.
14 We also have a plan of the centre of Portadown on
15 which are marked both the positions of the Land Rover as
16 identified by its occupants and also the positions from
17 which photographs were taken. They were taken on two
18 different occasions: firstly, on the morning of
19 27th April 1997 itself, and, secondly, at night in
20 a reconstruction on 10th June 1997.
21 We can have a look at those now. You can see what
22 we have here is a plan with blue or dark grey circles
23 with numbers in. Those show the positions from which
24 photographs were taken. This also shows the police
25 cordon which was applied later on the morning of
32
1 27th April. From this plan, as I say, bearing in mind
2 one has those circles from which the photographs were
3 taken, one can go directly to the photographs by
4 clicking on them. That obviously was taken on the
5 morning. There is the cordon itself. Then we can see
6 one of the night-time photographs. Again, there is, on
7 the right-hand side of the screen, the Land Rover as
8 placed in the reconstruction.
9 We have applied technology to these photographs as
10 well so that you can pan and zoom. You can see quite
11 good definition when it is zoomed in.
12 With the entire virtual reality suite of which this
13 is all part there is the facility to draw the image on
14 the screen and capture that screen image with a drawing
15 on it as a piece of evidence. So if, for example,
16 a witness wants to tell us where they were standing on
17 the night, they can draw a cross, they having the
18 control when they are in the witness box.
19 We also have virtual reality views of the area. We
20 are looking here at simply one shot, one example: again,
21 as with the rest of this suite, there is the facility to
22 draw the image on the screen and capture that as a piece
23 of evidence. Again, if a witness is happier with
24 a photograph, and round like that to mark where they
25 were, they can use that rather than a plan or a map.
33
1 We have night views as well as these day views in
2 the virtual reality suite. Those who know the area may
3 have noticed that these photographs and the virtual
4 reality suite are taken at various times. This is
5 contemporaneous with the hearing, as it were, so the
6 names on the shops are not necessarily the names on the
7 shops as they were in 1997.
8 To do that, what we have done is modelled the area.
9 Here we see a day view of it as clearly as possible. We
10 also have a night model. The main purpose of these
11 models is to reconstruct the scene with the right shop
12 signs on. Obviously this has been taken from
13 photographs and we hope it is a fairly accurate
14 representation for illustrative purposes and to aid
15 witnesses. Again, it is possible to draw lines, make
16 markings and capture the result as a piece of evidence.
17 Additionally, we have aerial photographs of
18 Portadown. This, of course, has key locations marked on
19 it. You can see from what has just happened that this
20 can be zoomed in. Yet again, markings can be made on
21 this. So if somebody wanted to draw their track, as it
22 were, on the night, or mark a position, they can do that
23 and, again, it can be captured.
24 In addition to all those, we have some maps ranging
25 from small to large scale. Inevitably, of course, these
34
1 can be zoomed. Again, we can draw lines, make markings
2 and the result can be captured and saved as evidence.
3 The advantage of some of these different maps, of
4 course, is they tend to show larger areas, so that
5 people who say they were coming from somewhere outside
6 the centre can, if necessary, go to that map to show us
7 how far that might have been.
8 The advantage of this particular map we have on the
9 screen at the moment is that it has labelled on it some
10 other significant locations, in particular, towards the
11 bottom right-hand side, marked "G", is St Patrick's
12 Hall, "F", further up and on the right, is the police
13 station. Continuing to go up from the police station,
14 "C" is Boss Hoggs, a place about which there will be
15 some evidence, and "A", towards the top, the highest
16 marking on the right is Heron's Country Fried Chicken,
17 again a place where, on the evidence, people were.
18 In addition to, as it were, the static exhibits, we
19 have voice recordings and transcripts. For the
20 ambulance call, we have simply put the transcript and
21 the voice recording on the same thing.
22 (Ambulance call played)
23 That's just a short snippet of it. Obviously we
24 have available the entirety of it, and we will come to
25 that in due course.
35
1 For police channels, the position is a little more
2 complex. There were two channels used on the night, and
3 in the heat of the moment officers used them
4 indiscriminately. That's not a criticism, but it has
5 led to us having to mix and match, as it were. What we
6 have done is combined both of the channels and the PSNI
7 has very kindly added times to them. The transcript
8 with timings is then shown in a combined recording.
9 (Police calls played)
10 I hope that will give a sense of immediacy. Also,
11 with the timings, it may be possible to reconstruct the
12 sequence and see what happened when.
13 The PSNI kindly positioned a Land Rover similar to
14 that involved on the night at the crossroads in
15 Portadown to enable us to take video recordings from the
16 inside, which was done at my direction to give an idea,
17 and only an idea, of what could being seen from inside
18 the position we put it. We have those views.
19 Witnesses will be asked to say how representative
20 they are of what could be seen from the actual Land
21 Rover on the night. What you are seeing there is the
22 views from inside the Land Rover in position which is
23 called LR2. We also have the position LR3: I hope this
24 gives some idea, and will give some idea, when the
25 evidence comes to be called on this, just how different
36
1 the views were from the two positions that the Land
2 Rover was in relevantly.
3 In addition, there is a virtual reality view from
4 inside the Land Rover. Again, it is in all three
5 positions. This is the third position as we apprehend
6 it at the moment. One has a choice of views. This is
7 the driver's view. Again, the only reason I am showing
8 these at the moment is to see what facilities we have at
9 our command when the witnesses come to give evidence.
10 Clearly most of these facilities are directed to what
11 happened on the nights of 26th and 27th April 1997.
12 In addition to that, we have a time line, which my
13 legal team has compiled. Here you see it on screen. It
14 contains references to most of the relevant events and
15 the documents that relate to them.
16 What you can see as we scroll through are the
17 coloured lines which relate to the various
18 investigations I have spoken about. If we take
19 a snapshot here, you get red, blue, green, etc. We have
20 the start date for each of the investigations, the end
21 date. I hope it will be of some value for anybody
22 looking through for a snapshot of what was going on at
23 any particular date to see what investigations were
24 afoot. In addition, one can, of course, drill down into
25 this by looking at a particular date.
37
1 Take at random 10th May 1997. What we have done
2 here is precis, and these are my precis, of the evidence
3 we know about of events that happened on that day with
4 the page reference leading to where the evidence
5 actually is.
6 This is very much, of course, a preparation tool.
7 I hope it has been helpful to legal teams in preparing
8 for the hearings. I hope it will be useful for
9 preparation for the final submissions. It may be useful
10 to you when you come to writing your report.
11 If it is helpful, I am very pleased about it. If it
12 is not, it is not evidence, it is simply my precis of
13 where I believe the evidence to be. Again, for anybody
14 looking at a particular date, it may be useful for them
15 to see the context.
16 The transcripts of the hearings which you referred
17 to in your opening remarks, sir, will be, together with
18 all documents referred to in evidence, uploaded on the
19 Inquiry's website as hearings progress. The aim is to
20 get transcripts on the website by the lunchtime of the
21 day after the evidence is given. The proceedings are,
22 of course, simultaneously being transcribed on LiveNote.
23 I think almost everybody in the room has had training on
24 that now, and, to see just how helpful that can be, it
25 has an electronic tagging facility which allows lawyers
38
1 to highlight evidence as it arises, and, as I think will
2 be evident, this comes up on the personal laptop
3 computers of legal representatives and, of course,
4 before you.
5 I want to emphasise all of this technology is simply
6 an aid to get the evidence out. It is not a substitute
7 for it. It will carry such weight as, in the end, you
8 think fit, once you have heard the oral evidence. It is
9 important to remember that about very important issues
10 there is very little common ground, particularly what
11 precisely happened on the night of 26th and
12 27th April 1997. There is controversy about aspects of
13 the murder investigation that no amount of technology
14 will help with. There will be conflicts of oral
15 evidence and only an analysis of that evidence is going
16 to enable you to resolve it, I apprehend.
17 In general, again, as your opening remarks
18 suggested, I will be the one asking questions of
19 witnesses. Representatives of interested parties and
20 others have been asked to provide lines of Inquiry and
21 lines of questioning to me, and I have been provided
22 already with some extremely helpful suggestions, for
23 which I am very grateful.
24 No doubt, as the hearings progress further,
25 questions will occur to my learned friends. I will be
39
1 very happy to take suggestions as and when they can be
2 made. There are no rules. Obviously, the earlier I get
3 them, the more efficiently the hearing will run. I, of
4 course, understand, as again you foreshadowed, that some
5 questions will only occur to people as witnesses are
6 giving their evidence.
7 If a suggestion comes to me by way of a note during
8 the evidence, I will do my very best to deal with it.
9 To the extent that, for whatever reason, any of my
10 learned friends believe that I have not dealt fully with
11 questions to be asked of a witness, then, of course,
12 they must ask your consent to put questions themselves.
13 Having said that then, what I propose to embark on
14 is a very brief overview of the facts. I have attempted
15 to make this as uncontroversial as possible, which is
16 not necessarily an easy task. I have endeavoured to
17 avoid assumptions of fact. I don't propose to trail the
18 oral evidence that we believe may emerge.
19 I think it is now known that, in 1997, Portadown was
20 a town with Protestant and Catholic communities and
21 there were tensions between the two. Thomas Street,
22 Market Street, High Street and Woodhouse Street met in
23 the centre of Portadown and, in 1997, the town centre
24 was regarded as a Protestant area. Nonetheless,
25 St Patrick's Hall in Thomas Street was a Catholic venue.
40
1 We can see the crossroads on there. Market Street and
2 the High Street is running, as it were, left to right
3 upwards. Thomas Street has Jameson's Bar on it and
4 Eastwoods is at the corner. Woodhouse Street leads more
5 or less straight off from that. The Halifax and the
6 Alliance & Leicester are on the corners there.
7 The Catholic patrons of St Patrick's Hall would walk
8 home occasionally up Thomas Street and into Woodhouse
9 streets to the Catholic estate after a night out. I say
10 occasionally because, on the evidence, it appears they
11 would do that only if they couldn't get a cab.
12 Protestants were liable to walk home up the High
13 Street and into Market Street in the early hours of
14 Sunday mornings. The town centre lay behind barriers,
15 so it was effectively pedestrianised only. As I said,
16 the crossroads appears to have been a notorious flash
17 point.
18 On 27th April 1997, four RUC personnel --
19 Constable Neill, Reserve Constable Atkinson,
20 Reserve Constable Cornett and an officer who has
21 anonymity and is known by code of P40 -- were detailed
22 public order duties in an armoured Land Rover in the
23 centre of Portadown. They were given that detail at
24 12.10 midnight. They had been on duty since 3.00 pm on
25 26th April and public orders duties were a regular task.
41
1 All four knew they meant patrolling and watching for
2 drunken fights and sectarian clashes. The reservists
3 were full-time. The principal differences between
4 ordinary constables and reserves was the latter were
5 employed on three-year contracts which were capable of
6 being renewed and reservists had less training than
7 regular officers. By what we believe to have been an
8 unwritten convention, constables appear to have been
9 regarded as senior to reservists.
10 The officers on duty at the time of the incident are
11 well documented. We are concerned with what was called
12 J Division, which comprised Portadown, Lurgan and
13 Banbridge. There were night duty officers, and,
14 including those working from the late turn headed by the
15 inspector, were Inspector Alan McCrum, one sergeant,
16 Sergeant P89, a communications officer, who
17 is called Constable Godley, a station office duty
18 constable, three station security constables and then
19 some mobile personnel.
20 There were two of those in a vehicle which was call
21 signed JD70, and those were Constable Orr and
22 a constable who has, again, been given anonymity, and we
23 refer to her as Constable A. There were three personnel
24 in the vehicle which had call sign JD80. Those were
25 Constable Cooke, who drove it, Reserve Constable Warnock
42
1 and Reserve Constable Murphy. There were two in call
2 sign JB70. Those were Constable Silcock, who drove it,
3 and Constable Adams, who was the observer. That was
4 deployed in somewhere called the Birches.
5 Then there were four in JD81, which was the
6 Land Rover at the crossroads, who, as I have already
7 told you, were Constable Neill, Reserve
8 Constable Atkinson, P40, and Reserve Constable Cornett.
9 There was also, I should say, a mobile support unit on
10 duty. That comprised two sergeants and 12 constables.
11 There were, in fact, two mobile support units allocated
12 to what was then J Division, but, having completed
13 an earlier tour of duty, the one MSU was deployed on
14 public order duties from 2330 hours on the 26th, and, at
15 the time of the incident, it was deployed at Banbridge.
16 The MSU then did deploy to Portadown, because it was
17 called out and was briefed by Inspector McCrum. By the
18 stage that it arrived, the public order incident had
19 largely been brought under control. The role of the MSU
20 then was to deter further disorder. It is for that
21 reason that the MSU does not, in fact, feature very
22 heavily in the evidence to be led.
23 So, at about 1.30 to 1.40 on the morning of
24 27th April 1997, events began to unfold in two ways.
25 Firstly, a bus load of Protestants arrived at the bottom
43
1 of the High Street. We see, in fact, the top right-hand
2 corner of our screen. They came from a club called the
3 Coach Inn. Secondly, a number of Catholics emerged from
4 a night of dancing at St Patrick's Hall in
5 Thomas Street. They decided to walk up into
6 Woodhouse Street. Again, the evidence seems to suggest
7 that was because of a want of taxis.
8 The Land Rover was at about this time parked in
9 a lay-by on Market Street facing down into the
10 High Street. At some point it moved off and the
11 officers then stopped and spoke to a gentleman called
12 Thomas Mallon. He was a Catholic who had come up from
13 Thomas Street. He warned them that Catholics were
14 coming up behind him from St Patrick's Hall.
15 Accounts vary about the extent to which Protestants
16 were in the area by then or what they were doing.
17 Mr Mallon then had an encounter with some Protestants.
18 It is not clear how many there were of them, but they
19 did include Stacey Bridgett and Dean Forbes.
20 Accounts also vary about the nature of that
21 encounter. What is clear is that the Land Rover, having
22 begun to move off, then stopped again. At least one of
23 the officers in it then spent some time talking in
24 a friendly way to Mr Forbes and Mr Bridgett.
25 Finally, accounts also vary about whether Mr Mallon
44
1 carried on home or whether he remained in the area.
2 We can see all those positions on the vehicle
3 location map. If I just briefly take you to it, if one
4 looks to the shops at the top side, First Trust Bank,
5 Clarks Shoe Shop, Instep Sports, LR1 is the position of
6 the Land Rover in a lay-by just outside Clarks Shoe
7 Shop. That's where the vehicle was stationary for some
8 time.
9 LR2 is, according to the reconstruction of
10 10th June, where the Land Rover then stopped temporarily
11 while Mr Mallon made it pause and while he spoke to at
12 least one of the officers in it.
13 LR3 then is where the Land Rover ended up. I hope
14 what the evidence is going to show is that the Land
15 Rover ended up there because of the meeting that
16 occurred between Mr Mallon and the Catholics in which
17 the Land Rover crews stopped initially to diffuse that,
18 and then so that at least some of them, or at least one
19 of them, could talk to Mr Bridget and Mr Forbes.
20 While that discussion was continuing, something
21 happened at the junction. That seems clear, because
22 somebody approached the Land Rover and pulled at
23 Constable Neill, in fact, pulling him out of the
24 Land Rover, accusing him of sitting there while it
25 happened. It is not clear who that person was. We know
45
1 then that violence broke out. There is a considerable
2 dispute about precisely how, where and between whom, nor
3 is it presently clear whether Mr Hamill was an immediate
4 casualty of that violence and whether he was knocked to
5 the ground before the officers dismounted from the
6 Land Rover.
7 A primary task for the Inquiry may well be to reach
8 conclusions about all of those matters, and it would be
9 unhelpful to attempt to set out the various accounts in
10 this brief chronology. Baldly, though, there are
11 essentially two versions of what happened to precipitate
12 the fight.
13 The first is that Mr Hamill and a small group were
14 walking up Thomas Street. When they reached the
15 junction, they were suddenly set on and Mr Hamill was
16 knocked down very quickly. He was then kicked and
17 jumped on.
18 The second version essentially is that a small
19 number of Catholic men either ran up Thomas Street and
20 attacked two or three Protestants who were at the
21 junction or they squared up to Protestants at the
22 junction until someone struck the first blow.
23 That version of events may involve Mr Hamill running
24 into Market Street to continue the fight. Other
25 Protestants walking up from the bottom of High Street
46
1 then outnumbered those Catholics, and that version has
2 the support of some of the witnesses who lived or worked
3 around the area and of some of the Protestants who admit
4 fighting.
5 The position of Mr Hamill on the road when
6 unconscious is not at all clear on either of those
7 accounts, and resolution of that issue might determine
8 which of those accounts is the more likely.
9 What is clear is that Mr Hamill was rendered
10 unconscious. He was left lying in the road together
11 with one of the other Catholics who had come up
12 Thomas Street with him. That person has anonymity. We
13 refer to him as "D". D was knocked briefly unconscious.
14 He also was in the road. Again, it is not at all clear
15 precisely where.
16 The officers in the Land Rover give varying accounts
17 of what they saw when they emerged from the Land Rover.
18 They have been asked about this a number of times in the
19 course of the various investigations. None of them says
20 that anyone was lying in the road when they got out.
21 Read as a whole, I think it is fair to say their
22 accounts to date are to the effect that no serious
23 assault had taken place by the time they got out. They
24 say they all got out when Constable Neill was pulled
25 out, that fighting began then and that they attempted to
47
1 restore order, but the Catholics and the police were
2 hopelessly outnumbered.
3 That, of course, has to be contrasted with what the
4 person pulling Constable Neill had said; that he had sat
5 there while it happened.
6 On the other hand, some witnesses will says that the
7 Land Rover crew waited in the vehicle while the assault
8 took place and that they only emerged when back-up
9 arrived. Reserve Constable Cornett, as you have heard
10 a snippet of, radioed for back-up. The timing we have
11 for that is at 1.45. Vehicles responded. We think the
12 most likely sequence of the response vehicle arriving is
13 that Constables Silcock and Adams arrived a few minutes
14 after 1.47. The second vehicle appears to have been
15 a police car containing Reserve Constables Cooke,
16 Warnock and Murphy, who arrived about 1.51 and
17 Constables Orr and A arrived at about 1.55.
18 Sergeant P89 and Inspector McCrum, who had been
19 in the police station we saw earlier marked on the plan,
20 arrived on foot at about 2 o'clock. Again, as you know,
21 because we have the ambulance tapes,
22 Reserve Constable Cornett called for ambulances as well
23 as back-up. Significantly, her first call for
24 an ambulance was after the first call for back-up. The
25 ambulance call was at 1.48.
48
1 So it is likely, we diffidently suggest that
2 Robert Hamill was on the ground by that stage, hence the
3 call for the ambulance. By at that stage, as I have
4 suggested, it looks as if Constable Silcock was on the
5 screen, and, interestingly, he made a virtually
6 simultaneous call for ambulances for two victims.
7 Again, it is possible that one may be able to
8 reconstruct the sequence and timing from this
9 intersection of course. One ambulance was sent.
10 Fortunately for us, it had automatic time recording
11 equipment which tells us it was on the scene at 1.58.
12 It left again smartly at 2.02, arriving at Craigavon
13 Area Hospital at 2.09. Assuming that its timings and
14 the police timings were both correct, as it were, again
15 there is an intersection of timings from all these which
16 may allow a reconstruction.
17 It is fair to say it is not clear precisely who was
18 conveyed to hospital. Certainly Mr Hamill was taken.
19 He was unconscious throughout. The person we are now
20 calling "D" appears to have walked to the ambulance,
21 having been rendered, as I said, briefly unconscious
22 before. He, too, was taken to hospital. A gentleman
23 called Colin Hull also attended hospital.
24 We think it likely, though we will see how the
25 evidence comes, that he, too, went in the ambulance. He
49
1 was a Catholic. Conflicting accounts have been
2 attributed to him, whether he came from St Patrick's
3 Hall or, indeed, from the opposite direction, from the
4 top of Woodhouse Street.
5 A further gentleman, Mr Vincent McNeice, may also
6 have travelled in the ambulance. Of course, we will
7 call these witnesses to tell you what they saw.
8 Police gradually got between the Protestants and
9 those on the ground. They formed a line and pushed the
10 Protestants up into West Street, so to the left on the
11 map we are looking at now. A number of the officers
12 recognised various Protestants who were behaving
13 aggressively towards them and also to the men on the
14 ground but the only direct identification any of the
15 officers has given in relation to the assault is by
16 Constable Neill, who described a person kicking at
17 Mr Hamill.
18 The person he identified as doing that was
19 subsequently identified as Mr Marc Hobson. In addition,
20 Constable A detained a gentleman called Wayne Lunt. She
21 placed him in the Land Rover in order to confirm his
22 name and address. When she released him, which she did,
23 because she didn't arrest him, she was challenged by at
24 least two Catholics who asked her why she was letting
25 him go, as he was "one of the ones who did it". Again,
50
1 you may be assisted by the contemporaneity of some of
2 these remarks such as, "You sat there and watched it
3 happen", or, "Why are you letting him go?".
4 Again, we are going to call all the witnesses
5 relevant to these matters for you to determine that.
6 Reserve Constable Atkinson warned Sergeant P89
7 about a gentleman called Allister Hanvey, who, it
8 transpires, was behaving aggressively towards the
9 sergeant while the police had formed the line trying to
10 push the Protestants up the road.
11 In particular, Reserve Constable Atkinson warned the
12 sergeant that Mr Hanvey was a martial arts expert. At
13 hospital, Mr Hamill was comatose, but he was not thought
14 to be in immediate danger originally. The constables at
15 the scene were then re-directed either to other duties,
16 or, in the case of those who had been on duty a long
17 time, allowed to go home at the end of their shifts.
18 None was asked to make notebook entries. There was no
19 immediate debriefing. That is despite the fact that
20 although at hospital nobody thought Mr Hamill to be in
21 immediate danger, in fact, a number of the police at the
22 scene thought he had been stabbed or at least had very
23 serious breathing difficulties. So they thought, even
24 though they were not debriefed about it, that he was
25 seriously ill.
51
1 The RUC, nonetheless, did begin an investigation
2 into the assault on the morning of 27th April.
3 Inspector McCrum had contacted the hospital, realised
4 the assault may be serious and called in a duty
5 Detective, Detective Constable Keys at 0442.
6 Between about 0540 and 0553, the Land Rover crew was
7 recalled and attended the police station to give
8 statements. They and other officers at the scene then
9 duly did make statements which were left for CID
10 officers to read. The statements were not the result of
11 interviews by the CID officers, and there is an issue
12 about the extent to which any meaningful debriefing of
13 the officers took place.
14 Later in the morning, Mr Hamill was moved to the
15 Royal Victoria Hospital because the CT scanner at the
16 first hospital was not working. He remained in a coma,
17 but the CT scan disclosed no particular injury. At 0837
18 on the morning of 27th April, a telephone call was made
19 from Reserve Constable Atkinson's home to a house
20 belonging to Allister Hanvey's parents, Kenneth and
21 Elizabeth Hanvey. Allister lived there with them. The
22 purpose of that call and the question whether it was
23 made by Reserve Constable Atkinson himself has attracted
24 a considerable degree of attention and gives rise to
25 important issues.
52
1 The statements made by officers on the morning of
2 27th April identified Mr Forbes and Mr Bridgett as being
3 at the scene of the fighting. They, as I said, were the
4 ones to whom the police officers were actually -- some
5 of the police officers were actually talking when the
6 Land Rover was stationary. Those gentlemen were
7 arrested for assault on 6th May 1997.
8 The statements made by various police officers also
9 named others who were at the front of the hostile crowd,
10 but no arrests were made in reliance on that
11 information. In particular, we will in due course draw
12 your attention to a gentleman who again has been
13 anonymised. We refer to him as P53.
14 As will become clear in the course of the hearings,
15 officers at the scene actually did identify a number of
16 people who were potential witnesses or suspects, but
17 they did not mention them in their statements. Those
18 omissions include any reference to Allister Hanvey and
19 any reference to the challenge made to Constable A when
20 she let Mr Lunt go.
21 On 6th May 1997, the solicitor for the Hamill family
22 made a complaint of neglect of duty against the
23 Land Rover crew for failing to intervene to protect
24 Mr Hamill. I will refer to that as the neglect
25 complaint. It obviously features quite largely in the
53
1 course of the evidence will emerge.
2 The complaint had two components: firstly, it was
3 an allegation of a criminal offence; secondly, it was
4 an allegation of misconduct. The practice of the RUC
5 was to deal with the criminal aspect of complaints like
6 that first, and those are the investigations, or,
7 rather, those are types of the investigations which come
8 within the category I have already referred to and you
9 have seen in the coloured line on the time line.
10 You will no doubt wish to have regard to the outcome
11 of investigations like that, but obviously you will see
12 reach your own conclusions about the facts they give
13 rise to.
14 On 8th May 1997, there were two important
15 developments. Firstly, Mr Hamill died unexpectedly.
16 The cause of death was not immediately clear and gave
17 rise to some speculation. We will indeed lead our
18 evidence with evidence by experts of the cause of death.
19 Secondly, later that day Andrea McKee met
20 Detective Constable McAteer and an inspector, Detective
21 Inspector Irwin, and she told them something that her
22 niece, Tracey Clarke, had been saying about the assault
23 and its aftermath.
24 That meeting came about because a Reserve Constable,
25 Reserve Constable McCaw, brought Andrea McKee to the
54
1 attention of the detectives in Portadown Police Station.
2 At the meeting, Mrs McKee told the detectives that
3 Tracey had seen the assault and could identify a number
4 of Protestants who kicked Robert Hamill while he was on
5 the road, including Allister Hanvey. Furthermore, she
6 said that Reserve Constable Atkinson had been keeping
7 Allister Hanvey informed of the progress of the
8 investigation.
9 Also on that day, changes were made to the
10 investigating teams. Initially, there was a Detective
11 Chief Inspector, who again has anonymity. We call her
12 P39. She had been appointed as the senior investigating
13 officer to the grievous bodily harm investigation, as it
14 had been until 8th May. Detective Inspector Irwin had
15 been her deputy. He is one of the gentleman who met
16 Andrea McKee that I just mentioned. Detective Chief
17 Superintendent McBurney apparently considered that his
18 role was to ensure they had adequate resources, but once
19 the neglect complaint was received, the Chief
20 Constable's office appointed him, that is DCS McBurney,
21 to be the senior investigating officer of that
22 investigation.
23 Once the police were informed of Robert Hamill's
24 death, Mr McBurney also became the senior investigating
25 officer for the murder investigation. By that stage,
55
1 DCI P39 became the investigating officer and DI Irwin
2 was then described as the office manager.
3 The investigation of the neglect complaint we
4 suggest needs to be considered with great care. There
5 is reason to believe, I respectfully suggest, that it
6 had an effect on the murder investigation and that it is
7 arguable at least that it was not conducted with due
8 diligence.
9 At 11.50 on the morning of 9th May 1997, the
10 detectives sought billing information regarding
11 telephone calls made between the Atkinson and Hanvey
12 homes to confirm the account which had been given to
13 them by Andrea McKee. Later that same day, 9th May,
14 Tracey Clarke attended the police station accompanied by
15 Andrea McKee and she gave a statement to the police,
16 which went, as it were, over midnight and was dated
17 10th May. She became known as Witness A to give her
18 some degree of protection.
19 In the statement she made to police she identified
20 a number of people: Dean Forbes, Allister Hanvey,
21 Stacey Bridgett, somebody called "Muck" and
22 Rory Robinson as having kicked and jumped on
23 Robert Hamill. She also said that Mr Hanvey told her
24 that Reserve Constable Atkinson had been very good to
25 him, had rung him about 8 o'clock on 27th April and told
56
1 him to get rid of his clothes and had rung him regularly
2 since to keep him informed of the investigation.
3 Also on 9th May, Reserve Constable McCaw, the
4 gentleman who had alerted detectives to Tracey Clarke,
5 alerted the detectives to an urgent need to see somebody
6 else. That was Timothy Jameson. Mr Jameson had
7 previously completed a questionnaire administered by the
8 police, who were looking to find witnesses on the night.
9 In that questionnaire he denied any knowledge of the
10 assault. His father was a prominent local builder who
11 had police protection because he worked on police
12 stations, and Mr McCaw visited the police station in
13 response to what Timothy Jameson had said to him.
14 Apparently at the police station Mr McCaw saw DI Irwin
15 and DCS McBurney. There is a conflict about what was
16 said there and to whom.
17 Mr McCaw was accompanied by somebody called, for the
18 purposes of this Inquiry, Reserve Constable G. Both
19 Mr McCaw and Reserve Constable G were close protection
20 officers and they were assigned to Mr Jameson senior.
21 Their account is that Timothy Jameson had told him he
22 had "put the boot in" to one of the men on the road.
23 They passed that information on to the detectives.
24 The detectives, for their part, have all asserted
25 they were merely told that Timothy Jameson was
57
1 a material witness. Whatever transpired there -- and it
2 is a matter which, no doubt, you will take an interest
3 in -- in the event, Timothy Jameson was interviewed and
4 he was interviewed as a witness.
5 He gave a statement. In that, he identified again
6 somebody called "Muck" who was fighting; Rory Robinson,
7 who was fighting; Allister Hanvey, who was kicking and
8 punching somebody of Mr Hamill's description on the
9 ground; and somebody called "Fonzy", who he said kicked
10 Mr Hamill in the face a couple of times.
11 The statement also said that Mr Jameson saw
12 Dean Forbes punch someone. Again, for reasons of
13 protection, an initial was given to Mr Jameson. He was
14 known as Witness B for those purposes. We will see that
15 "Fonzy" was identified and arrested but not charged, and
16 Timothy Jameson was later to retract his statement in
17 its entirety.
18 On 10th May, all those who had been identified by
19 Tracey Clarke were arrested and their homes were
20 searched. "Muck" was discovered to be Marc Hobson.
21 Wayne Lunt was also arrested. DNA samples were taken
22 from those arrested and the search of the Hanvey home is
23 a matter of some significance. It appears not to have
24 extended to the garden or surrounding area for signs of
25 burnt or discarded clothing and, in fact, it seems to
58
1 have been confined to one room. A black padded jacket
2 was recovered from that one room and, at interview,
3 Mr Hanvey said that that was his only jacket and that he
4 had been wearing it on the night.
5 On 11th May 1997, Allister Hanvey's parents and his
6 uncle Thomas were seen by police. They said
7 Allister Hanvey had been with Thomas Hanvey on the
8 morning of the incident from about 3.00 am to 9.00 am.
9 Also on 11th May, Jonathan Wright gave his first
10 statement. He is a gentleman who said he was with
11 Allister Hanvey on the night. Very significantly you
12 may think, he described Mr Hanvey as wearing a grey top
13 with orange stripes on the sleeves at the time of the
14 incident.
15 Although further searches of the Hanvey homes were
16 conducted in an attempt to find that jacket or traces of
17 it, other witnesses were not asked about what they saw
18 Mr Hanvey wearing until 2001. Importantly,
19 Tracey Clarke was not asked. She was a sometime
20 girlfriend of Allister Hanvey. Had she been asked about
21 it, the indications are she would have said she had
22 bought a jacket which was silver with orange stripes
23 down the sleeves for Allister Hanvey for Christmas 1996,
24 and that, she would have said, was what he destroyed.
25 According to materials given to us by the PSNI,
59
1 Tracey Clarke's mother and her stepfather would have
2 corroborated the purchase of such a jacket and would
3 have corroborated that Tracey Clarke was upset that that
4 jacket had been destroyed. As I say, none of that
5 emerged in 1997.
6 On 15th May 1997, Andrew Allen was arrested. He
7 accepted that he was known as "Fonzy". Unhappily, due
8 to a typing error in the transcript of Timothy Jameson's
9 statement, that identification of "Fonzy" was corrupted
10 to "Gonzy" and Mr Allen was released without charge the
11 day he was arrested. The RUC became aware on
12 12th June 1997 of the typing error, but we will see it
13 persisted.
14 David Woods is a gentleman who was also arrested and
15 interviewed later on 15th May 1997 and he was released
16 without charge on 16th May. The billing records that
17 had been sought on about 9th May of the Atkinson/Hanvey
18 telephones arrived on 16th May as far as we can
19 ascertain. They showed the call that I spoke about at
20 8.37 from the Atkinson household to the Hanvey
21 household. They also showed another one in the same
22 direction on 2nd May 1997.
23 Obviously, those give some support to the contention
24 that a telephone call was made by Mr Atkinson, as it
25 were, to tip off Mr Hanvey on the morning of the 27th
60
1 and perhaps keep him informed afterwards.
2 Notwithstanding getting those records on 16th May,
3 no action was taken. Detective Chief
4 Superintendent McBurney treated the possibility of
5 Reserve Constable Atkinson having perverted the course
6 of justice as part of the neglect complaint. That
7 complaint was supervised -- and one again sees this from
8 the coloured bands on the time line -- by the
9 Independent Commission for Police Complaints. Yet that
10 body had no power to supervise an investigation that was
11 no part of a complaint unless the Chief Constable
12 referred it to them. The Chief Constable was not asked
13 to refer the Atkinson matter to the ICPC and, further,
14 the ICPC appears not to have been told of the arrival of
15 the billing information.
16 You will be hearing a good deal of evidence about
17 the way in which complaints or allegations which emerge
18 in the course of some other investigation about a police
19 officer should have been treated as part of complaints
20 and discipline investigation and the chain of
21 communication that should have gone up to the Chief
22 Constable. You will be hearing from all the officers
23 involved, including the Chief Constable.
24 On 30th May 1997, DCI P39, who was the lady I told
25 you who was originally the senior investigating officer
61
1 of the assault, was transferred out of Portadown. She
2 had maintained something called a policy book, a murder
3 policy book. She handed that on her transfer to
4 DI Irwin. That was the last that happened to it, as it
5 were. No further entries were made in that policy book.
6 On 22nd July 1997, Detective Inspector Irwin signed
7 off a crime file for submission to the DPP, which was,
8 as it were, a report going up to the prosecuting
9 authorities to alert them of the potential for charges
10 and prosecutions. That crime file unhappily perpetuated
11 the typing error of "Fonzy", which I would apprehend on
12 a fair reading makes it look as if that's a reason for
13 not prosecuting Mr Allen. You will see that and form
14 your own views, of course.
15 On 9th September 1997, Reserve Constable Atkinson
16 was finally interviewed under caution. He was
17 interviewed by Detective Inspector Irwin and Detective
18 Chief Superintendent McBurney. You will recall, of
19 course, that DI Irwin had been instrumental in the
20 evidence coming out or rather the statement being made
21 by Tracey Clarke and had, of course, met Andrea McKee.
22 Reserve Constable Atkinson was interviewed in relation
23 to the neglect complaint.
24 Now, as I have said, the neglect complaint strictly
25 was the complaint made by xxxxxxxxxx on behalf of
62
1 the Hamill family and went to the four officers not
2 getting out of the Land Rover, even though Detective
3 Chief Superintendent McBurney, as it were, wrapped up
4 into it the allegation being made of tipping off.
5 In the course of that interview, Mr Atkinson was
6 asked about telephone calls, but it was not put to him
7 that billing records showed that telephone calls had
8 been made. He was released for re-interview a month
9 later and in the meantime was to obtain his own billing
10 records. He was duly re-interviewed on
11 9th October 1997, this time in the absence of any
12 representative of the ICPC, who obviously took the view
13 at that stage they were not supervising that part of
14 what might have been regarded as the neglect complaint.
15 In the course of that second interview, he said that
16 the call on 27th April was made by Michael McKee,
17 Andrea's husband, who he said had been staying at his
18 house with Andrea McKee, but unbeknown to him,
19 Mr Atkinson. The call on 2nd May, between the houses,
20 was said to have been made by Mr Atkinson's wife,
21 Eleanor, to the Hanveys. Both Eleanor Atkinson and
22 Michael McKee duly attended and gave what I think could
23 reasonably be called alibi statements to that effect.
24 On 17th October 1997, Gordon Kerr, Queen's Counsel,
25 who was leading counsel briefed to prosecute those
63
1 charged with murder or to consider those charges, saw
2 Tracey Clarke. In that interview, in consultation, she
3 made it plain she would not give evidence.
4 Significantly perhaps she did not deny the truth of the
5 statement she had made dated 10th May 1997.
6 On 21st October, Mr Kerr QC, saw Timothy Jameson to
7 evaluate his evidence. He, you will recall, had been
8 brought to the attention of the detectives by Reserve
9 Constable McCaw, about which there is some contention.
10 Mr Jameson alleged he had been drunk on the night
11 and that words had been put into his mouth by the
12 detective who took the statement. That was
13 a Detective Constable Honeyford. It is only fair to
14 say, I think, that nobody present at that
15 consultation -- and you will be hearing from them --
16 took that allegation at all seriously. You may think it
17 was a serious allegation and that, if made in the
18 presence of Queen's Counsel, who was supposed to
19 prosecute, and in the presence of representatives of the
20 DPP, and they had thought there was anything in it, then
21 they might have done something about it.
22 Be that as it may, counsel concluded that Mr Jameson
23 would not give any evidence of any value. Mr Jameson
24 has kindly waived privilege over attendance notes which
25 were made by a solicitor he instructed at the time.
64
1 When you come to see those, you may think those are not
2 wholly consistent with the account he gave counsel about
3 his statement.
4 Whatever the causes of witnesses withdrawing their
5 evidence may have been, as a result of the inability to
6 call those witnesses, the DPP issued a direction on
7 29th October 1997 to withdraw the murder charges against
8 Messrs Hanvey, Forbes and Robinson. That left others.
9 The evidence against Mr Hobson was, as I have
10 suggested, directly from Constable Neill, who, you will
11 recall, had said he had seen a person who turned out to
12 be Mr Hobson kicking at somebody on the ground. The
13 evidence against Mr Lunt came from Mr Prunty, one of the
14 Catholics who was on the scene, and the evidence against
15 Mr Bridgett included that some of his blood was found on
16 Robert Hamill's jeans.
17 There was also evidence that Mr Bridgett was in the
18 crowd attempting to get through the police line to
19 attack Mr Hamill and he had, in fact, in interview,
20 denied being anywhere near Mr Hamill, notwithstanding
21 that his blood had managed to get on to Mr Hamill's
22 jeans. So there were those outstanding possibilities
23 for prosecution based on that evidence or that material.
24 Also on 29th October 1997, Andrea McKee gave
25 an alibi statement supporting what Mr Atkinson had said
65
1 about the telephone call on 27th April. So, having
2 initially met Detective Inspector Irwin way back in May
3 to tell him what her niece had said about Mr Atkinson
4 tipping Mr Hanvey off, she now makes a statement to the
5 police. Not only does she make it to the police; she
6 makes it to Detective Inspector Irwin, so completely
7 contradicting what she said, which had caused six people
8 by this stage to be in custody for five months.
9 Obviously the contradiction between what she told
10 Detective Inspector Irwin on 8th May, and which had been
11 the basis for the seeking of the billing records and the
12 basis on which people had been in custody, is a matter
13 which is likely to take some time in this Inquiry.
14 Despite that contradiction, no further action was
15 taken at that stage. When Mr McBurney duly compiled his
16 report to the DPP, which was on the neglect complaint,
17 and that was 22nd December 1997, he did not suggest any
18 action at all against Reserve Constable Atkinson.
19 I will come in some detail later to see how he
20 treated the contradictory evidence, as it were, that
21 Andrea McKee provided and how it was treated.
22 On 5th November 1997, Mr Kerr saw Colin Prunty, who,
23 as I said, was the key witness in respect of Mr Lunt.
24 Mr Prunty by that stage had seen some news footage of
25 those defendants who had been released from custody, and
66
1 he was now adamant that the man he had identified as
2 an attacker was, fact, one of the other defendants and
3 not Mr Lunt.
4 On 11th November 1997, the RUC received the post
5 mortem report from Professor Crane. That report
6 identified the assault as the direct cause of
7 Mr Hamill's death. Until then, it is fair to say the
8 RUC had not been able to be clear about that causal
9 connection.
10 On 13th November 1997, Mr Kerr advised that more
11 information was required about that bloodstain on
12 Mr Hamill's jeans before a decision could be reached
13 about prosecuting Mr Bridgett.
14 On 17th November 1997, a Mr Davison of the DPP spoke
15 to Mr Marshall of the Forensic Science Agency.
16 Mr Marshall was very guarded about how he would
17 interpret the bloodstain, but no further inquiry was
18 made. Mr Bridgett was not re-interviewed. On the
19 materials that were then before him, Mr Kerr concluded
20 on 18th November 1997 that there was insufficient
21 evidence against Messrs Bridgett and Lunt, and the
22 holding charges against them were then dropped. The
23 case proceeded then against Mr Hobson alone for murder.
24 As I have said, the decisions not to prosecute
25 others have been highly controversial, and to the degree
67
1 to which they shaped the murder investigation, you will
2 no doubt wish to explore whether they were reached with
3 due diligence.
4 On 25th November 1997, Kenneth and Elizabeth Hanvey
5 were seen by Detective Inspector Irwin. They, too,
6 confirmed the Atkinson alibi, as I am calling it, for
7 the telephone calls of 27th April and 2nd May 1997. So
8 on 22nd December 1997, Detective Chief
9 Superintendent McBurney submitted his crime file in
10 relation to the neglect complaint and recommended no
11 prosecution of the officers in the Land Rover.
12 That recommendation was the subject of a good deal
13 of further consideration and advice, but the
14 recommendation was in due course accepted, so no action
15 was taken against the four in the Land Rover for failing
16 to get out of it. The recommendation in that crime
17 report extended to the question of whether Mr Atkinson
18 did tip off Mr Hanvey. As I said, it concluded nothing
19 should be done, but it did, to be fair, point out that
20 the explanation which he gave was to be doubted.
21 As I say, you will see it in detail to see how
22 fairly the known facts were set out there.
23 On 25th March 1999, after a trial, Mr Hobson was
24 convicted of affray. I said before that Constable Neill
25 said he saw Mr Hobson "kicking at" Mr Hamill, not kicking
68
1 him, so no evidence was led that any kick by Mr Hobson
2 connected with anybody. It was that distinction which
3 led to the conviction on the lesser charge.
4 On 11th November 1999, the criminal aspect of the
5 neglect complaint was complete. The ICPC certified that
6 it was satisfactory, and you will see in the course of
7 its certification process that there was an internal
8 conclusion, as it were, reached in the ICPC that the
9 allegation that Mr Atkinson tipped off Mr Hanvey did not
10 itself call for further investigation. You may wonder
11 what the ICPC was doing discussing that at all if it was
12 not part of his remit, and that's something we will be
13 calling evidence on.
14 In respect of the discipline side of the neglect
15 complaint, that was then, too, considered under ICPC
16 supervision and, on 29th March 2000 that aspect of the
17 neglect complaint was finished and a certificate of
18 satisfaction was signed off again by the ICPC. Again,
19 the conclusion was no action was called for.
20 So in respect of the neglect complaint, by that
21 point then both the criminal and disciplinary aspects of
22 it had been concluded with no action taken.
23 On 2nd June 2000 Detective Chief
24 Superintendent McBurney decided to re-interview the
25 McKees about the alibi they provided for
69
1 Reserve Constable Atkinson. A Detective Chief Inspector
2 was brought into the team for that. He is a gentleman
3 who has been given anonymity. We call him DCI K.
4 On 14th June 2000, Mr McKee, when interviewed, said
5 he had nothing further to add. Andrea McKee,
6 interviewed without being cautioned on 20th June 2000,
7 admitted that the alibi she had given was false. So she
8 went back, as it were, to her first version given which
9 had led to people being arrested. She said in this
10 interview that the McKees had not been at the Atkinsons
11 and that Reserve Constable Atkinson had later asked them
12 to make false statements. By that point she was
13 separated from her husband and had moved away.
14 On 26th June 2000, it was decided to re-investigate
15 the actions of Reserve Constable Atkinson. Detective
16 Chief Superintendent McBurney was to be the senior
17 investigating officer for that. DCI K was to be the
18 investigating officer for that.
19 In November 2000, the Police Ombudsman for Northern
20 Ireland, which we called PONI, replaced the ICPC. On
21 13th December, the Ombudsman expressed dissatisfaction
22 with Detective Chief Superintendent McBurney as the SIO
23 of the continuing investigation into Mr Atkinson. He,
24 Mr McBurney, was then quickly replaced by Detective
25 Chief Superintendent Colville Stewart. DCI K remained
70
1 as investigating officer. The office of PONI had power,
2 unlike the ICPC, to investigate possible crimes by
3 police officers.
4 It decided, though, merely to supervise the apparent
5 conspiracy involving Mr Atkinson and others, but it
6 launched its own investigation into the treatment of
7 Andrea McKee and Timothy Jameson by Detective Chief
8 Superintendent McBurney and Detective Inspector Irwin;
9 that is, having taken the alibi statement from her, that
10 they knew or were likely to have known that that was
11 false.
12 In January 2001 a new Complaints and Discipline
13 investigation by the internal investigations branch of
14 the RUC started. That looked into quite a separate
15 aspect. That looked into, as it were, the early stages
16 of the investigation. It looked into scene
17 preservation, arrest strategy, forensic strategy and
18 debriefing in relation to the assault. That was
19 initially led by a Superintendent Kennedy. It was
20 supervised by PONI.
21 It, in due course, resulted in recommendations to
22 admonish two of the officers who were involved in the
23 early stages of the investigation.
24 On 10th April 2001, arrests were made. Those were
25 of Reserve Constable Atkinson, his wife
71
1 Eleanor Atkinson, and Kenneth, Elizabeth, Thomas and
2 Allister Hanvey and Michael McKee. Interviews were
3 conducted. Michael McKee admitted then that what
4 Andrea McKee was now saying -- that is in June 2000 --
5 was true. None of the others made any admissions.
6 Intrusive surveillance was then begun but came to
7 nothing, because within days it was discovered by those
8 under surveillance. Andrea McKee was then, in due
9 course, interviewed under caution -- that is on
10 10th April 2001 -- and she repeated under caution what
11 she had admitted on 20th June 2000: namely, that she had
12 given a false statement to support Mr Atkinson.
13 On 23rd May 2001 a crime file was submitted by the
14 PSNI to the DPP, which dealt with Andrea McKee alone.
15 It led to her prosecution. There are two important
16 features of what happened in consequence of it.
17 The first of those is Michael McKee was also
18 prosecuted in respect of perverting the course of
19 justice, though the crime file on its face deals
20 explicitly only with Andrea McKee. There does not
21 appear ever to have been a crime file in respect of
22 Michael McKee.
23 Secondly, the PSNI actively sought to prevent the
24 DPP from having Mrs McKee sentenced until she gave
25 evidence against the others involved in the conspiracy.
72
1 The choices, of course, were to prosecute her, have her
2 sentenced and take the chance she might come and give
3 evidence or hold over a sentence for her until she gave
4 such evidence as she was going to give and so the judge
5 could form a view about everybody.
6 What you will hear is that the PSNI was very
7 concerned that, if she was sentenced, she might not turn
8 up and give evidence against Mr Atkinson and others.
9 The DPP rejected that course of action. She was
10 prosecuted.
11 On 4th November 2001, the RUC ceased to exist. It
12 was replaced by the PSNI, which, of course, has
13 significance for the terms of reference.
14 On 4th March 2002, Andrea and Michael McKee both
15 pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to pervert the
16 course of justice. Both were given prison sentences.
17 Mrs McKee's was suspended and Mr McKee's was immediate.
18 Further enquiries were then launched into the
19 murder. DCI K undertook those. What he was interested
20 in was a large number of matters, including attempting
21 to resolve the question of what Allister Hanvey had been
22 wearing on the night of 27th April and who had seen him.
23 A result of his investigation was he revealed the
24 investigation that Reserve Constable McCaw and the other
25 Reserve Constable had told detectives that
73
1 Timothy Jameson had "put the boot in".
2 On 19th December 2002, as a result of that
3 revelation, Timothy Jameson was arrested on suspicion of
4 the murder of Robert Hamill. Under interview he made no
5 admissions and the DPP concluded there was insufficient
6 evidence to proceed, so in the event he was not
7 prosecuted.
8 On 6th December 2002, the Atkinsons were notified
9 they were to be prosecuted for conspiracy to pervert the
10 course of justice. That is Mr and Mrs Atkinson.
11 Kenneth Hanvey was charged with doing an act with the
12 intent to pervert the course of public justice, and both
13 charges related to the accounts given by them about who
14 had made the telephone call of 27th April 1997. So one
15 had got the McKees prosecuted and sentenced and here are
16 the others, rather later, being prosecuted.
17 On Monday, 22nd December 2003, Andrea McKee was due
18 to give evidence at what's called a preliminary inquiry.
19 For those of us brought up in England, a committal
20 hearing. She telephoned on the Sunday before she was
21 due to give that evidence to say she could not attend
22 from her home in Wales because her son was ill with
23 mumps.
24 An adjournment was granted but the magistrate who
25 was due to hear the preliminary inquiry ordered that
74
1 a medical certificate be obtained. The police duly
2 asked the GP's surgery for a certificate, but the GP was
3 away. So the police then asked local Welsh police to
4 inquire into the medical history had been given by
5 Andrea McKee, and they did so. They discovered that her
6 child had indeed been ill and had been treated. They
7 concluded, though, that the records and recollections of
8 doctors and their staff did not tally with the full
9 account that had then been given by Mrs McKee about the
10 treatment of her son at an out-of-hours clinic. The
11 account she gave which related to that out-of-hours
12 clinic went way beyond what the court had been told and,
13 of course, beyond what the magistrate had required.
14 All of that information was relayed back to the DPP
15 and, after consultation with leading counsel, the DPP
16 concluded that Andrea McKee could now not be advanced as
17 a witness of truth in respect of the matters for which
18 she had received a prison sentence.
19 On 19th March 2004, the prosecution against the
20 Atkinsons and Kenneth Hanvey was discontinued. It will
21 no doubt become necessary to decide whether you can
22 regard her as a witness of truth in order to evaluate
23 the important matters to which she goes telling you
24 about the alleged conspiracy.
25 You may also wish to consider whether any
75
1 opportunity to further the murder investigation was lost
2 as a result of the failure to prosecute Mr Atkinson and
3 others, because, if it is true that there was
4 a conspiracy in respect of what he saw Mr Hanvey do,
5 then you may think he may been able to give some useful
6 evidence.
7 If you take the view those are matters into which
8 you need to inquire, then perhaps you would consider
9 also whether the prosecution or failure of prosecution
10 in respect of Mr Atkinson was considered with due
11 diligence.
12 The end result of that all of that then is, of
13 course, the murder remains unsolved. One person has
14 been convicted of a lesser offence and two people have
15 been convicted of covering up, on their own admission,
16 a conspiracy.
17 Sir, I am going to go on now to the principal
18 questions which I would respectfully suggest at this
19 stage might arise. I wonder, though, whether that might
20 be better done in one bite.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, certainly.
22 MR UNDERWOOD: This is a convenient moment.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: 2 o'clock.
24 (12.55 pm)
25 (The luncheon adjournment)
76
1 (2.00 pm)
2 MR UNDERWOOD: Sir, I promised to have the second stage of
3 the opening in which the principal questions that might
4 recommend themselves to you could be posed at this
5 stage. The purpose of posing these is simply to provide
6 a context within which the evidence, when it comes, can
7 be digested. Whether these questions turn out to be of
8 value at the end is, of course, entirely a matter for
9 you.
10 I will divide the questions according to the two
11 major components of the terms of reference, if I may,
12 and then discuss them under sub-headings.
13 The first component of the terms of reference is
14 whether any wrongful act or omission by or within the
15 RUC facilitated Robert Hamill's death and some
16 subsidiary questions within the terms themselves.
17 The first question that seems to frame itself under
18 that is: what was the cause of death? There are two
19 questions which you may wish to consider under this.
20 The first is whether the assault was the cause of
21 the death or whether there was some other intervening
22 cause.
23 The second is whether the medical findings could
24 reveal something and assist you in determining the
25 intensity and duration of the assault itself.
77
1 So far as intervening cause is concerned, it has
2 been suggested that Mr Hamill was starved of oxygen
3 between the time of the assault and the time he was seen
4 at the Craigavon Area Hospital. I am proposing to call
5 Professor Crane, who prepared the original post mortem
6 report and Dr Lawler, an independent pathologist
7 instructed by the Inquiry to deal with that issue.
8 In respect of the second issue -- that is whether
9 the medical findings can assist you in determining what
10 happened in the assault -- the experts disagree about
11 the precise mechanism of the death. That is whether he
12 died because Mr Hamill had an axonal injury resulting
13 from the assault or whether he contracted something
14 called neuroleptic malignant syndrome. I should be
15 entirely clear about this: nonetheless, the experts
16 appear to agree that, whatever was the precise cause of
17 the death, there was an unbroken chain of causation
18 between the assault and the death. Obviously a matter
19 for you to determine, but that's the state of play
20 between the experts at the moment.
21 That difference of opinion may itself of course shed
22 light on the degree and intensity of the assault. It is
23 fair to say that Mr Hamill did not suffer very severe
24 external injuries so the neurological and other medical
25 evidence may be highly material in deciding what
78
1 actually happened, whether there was a prolonged and
2 violent assault.
3 The next issue to be considered is perhaps the
4 intelligence available to anticipate, or otherwise,
5 public disorder at what was a recognised flashpoint.
6 The first question under this heading appears to be
7 a general one, with respect: historically, what events
8 had occurred at the location which should have put the
9 RUC on notice that there was a risk of a sectarian
10 assault?
11 We think you may find it easy to conclude that that
12 crossroads was a notorious flashpoint and that the RUC
13 in general and the Land Rover crew in particular was
14 aware of the need to be vigilant for an outbreak of
15 violence there at that time.
16 The secondary question is whether there was any
17 specific intelligence of any intended assault or
18 sectarian reprisal on that night. It is fair to say
19 none has emerged yet on the materials, but the oral
20 evidence is yet to come.
21 Next, one might usefully turn to the resources
22 available to the RUC to deal with this matter. The
23 first question is: what was the equipment available and
24 the training and experience of the personnel who were on
25 duty on the night of 26th/27th April?
79
1 Secondly, I will be addressing evidence to the
2 question: could, and should, more have been done to
3 police public order at the junction? On this, as I have
4 mentioned earlier, we have instructed an independent
5 police expert, Mr Murray. He addresses that question,
6 and his provisional conclusion at the moment on the
7 basis of historic difficulties at the junction, is that
8 the RUC made adequate provision in telling off
9 a Land Rover crew to be there for the events which could
10 reasonably have been foreseen.
11 Obviously, again, this is a matter for evidence and
12 a matter for your resolution.
13 Next, one might usefully consider the content of the
14 briefing of the Land Rover crew. It appears to have
15 been perfunctory, but that's no criticism. It didn't go
16 beyond, as it were, public order duties. You will have
17 in mind the notoriety of the flashpoint, the
18 experience, when it comes to considering this, of the
19 people ordered to go out there, and you may well easily
20 conclude that, in particular, Constable Neill,
21 an experienced officer, told off for that sort of duty
22 would not have needed more specific instructions, but,
23 again, a matter for the Inquiry.
24 The next matter to which I will be directing
25 evidence is what happened between the Land Rover
80
1 officers and Mr Mallon's warning. The first question
2 which appears to arise there is: what information did
3 Mr Mallon actually give to the officers in the
4 Land Rover that might have put them on notice of
5 impending trouble?
6 Naturally, that's going to turn on whether the
7 account given by Mr Mallon and supported by the
8 Land Rover crew is accepted. Obviously at present the
9 information is that all four in the Land Rover and
10 Mr Mallon are saying very much the same thing, but,
11 again, we don't proceed on any assumptions.
12 The second question in relation to that is: what
13 were the positions of the Land Rover at about the time
14 of the warning?
15 I have already indicated that on 10th June 1997
16 there was a reconstruction of the placing of the vehicle
17 on the night and the three positions we see on screen
18 before us as LR1, LR2 and LR3 were identified as the
19 starting, mid and end point of the journey of the
20 Land Rover at the material time.
21 There will be at least one further reconstruction at
22 which the Panel will see a Land Rover in roughly the
23 position on the night, but there may be more, for all
24 I know. In the end, of course, the reconstructions may
25 help; they may not. It is going to turn on the evidence
81
1 of the various people who saw the Land Rover and were in
2 it.
3 The third question on this discussion between
4 Mr Mallon and the officers is: what could the officers
5 in the Land Rover see and hear from inside the vehicle?
6 We perhaps could usefully see here in more detail
7 just what could be seen from the different positions.
8 This is the position where it appears Mr Mallon
9 stopped the Land Rover, and this is the driver's eye
10 view down Thomas Street. So from that position, the
11 driver could see anybody coming up the town and, of
12 course, anybody coming up from Thomas Street.
13 If we look at the rear side window view, despite
14 very small windows, there is even some view from there
15 down Thomas Street. Again restricted, but you may think
16 quite a useful view even from there.
17 If we go then to the LR3 location, which is where
18 the vehicle ended up -- and again, I emphasise this is
19 reconstruction. This may or may not represent what
20 happened, but it is the best evidence we have at the
21 moment. Here, again, we have the driver's eye view,
22 fairly good down the High Street, but not into
23 Thomas Street.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Thomas Street we saw, as you go away from the
25 junction, veers slightly to the right, turns slightly to
82
1 the right.
2 MR UNDERWOOD: Yes, it does.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Do you know if the church hall is before or
4 beyond that curve?
5 MR UNDERWOOD: It is after the curve.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
7 MR UNDERWOOD: Then we have a rear side window view here,
8 this time much more limited out of the front and rather
9 more restricted out of the side.
10 Finally in this position, we have the back door
11 window view. Given the angle of the Land Rover, there
12 may have been something to be seen out of that.
13 So there in reconstructed form, however reliably,
14 one can see the distinction between what could have been
15 seen at the position when Mr Mallon stopped the
16 Land Rover and the position where the police actually
17 were, as it appears, when the violence broke out.
18 Still dealing with the interplay between Mr Mallon
19 and the Land Rover crew, the fourth question is: what
20 happened between Mr Hamill and his assailants?
21 Plainly, that's likely to be critically important.
22 As I have said, there are broadly two versions of that,
23 which appear to be irreconcilable, and within each
24 version there is a variety of differences between
25 different accounts. The questions which I am about to
83
1 pose deal with events which form some sort of clash
2 involving Mr Hamill.
3 The next question then is: at what stage relative to
4 that clash the Land Rover crew became aware anything was
5 happening. In particular, this question calls for
6 resolution of the issue: what motivated that
7 unidentified person who pulled Constable Neill from the
8 Land Rover, accusing him of sitting there while it
9 happened?
10 As I suggested, I think, all of the officers in the
11 Land Rover support that having happened. It is very
12 difficult to see why they would do that unless it did
13 so, because it is hardly in their interest. As I have
14 suggested, though, that person has not yet been
15 identified. We will, of course, ask anybody we can
16 bring before you whether they were that person. So far,
17 we have drawn a blank with everyone we have interviewed.
18 Next, it will probably be necessary to decide at
19 what stage relative to the start of the violence
20 Mr Hamill received his head injury. If the version of
21 events which is propounded by the three people walking
22 up or three of the people walking up Thomas Street, who
23 we know as D, E and F, is correct, then that may have
24 happened very quickly. If that's right, then it is
25 difficult to see how the police might have had the
84
1 chance to react.
2 On the other hand, if the version of events which
3 has Mr Hamill pursuing someone is correct, then there
4 may have been quite a lengthy period between the start
5 of the violence and the decisive injury.
6 To decide this, I regret that you are going to have
7 to be faced with a large number of accounts, all of
8 which in some degree conflict with each other, and,
9 again, there were conflicting versions of whereabouts on
10 the road Mr Hamill ended up, and, again, it may be
11 helpful to resolve that.
12 The next question which appears to be material is:
13 if there was some sort of warning by Mr Mallon, and if
14 some violence took place at the junction which the crew
15 missed, why did they miss it?
16 As I say, at least one of the officers was chatting
17 to Dean Forbes and Stacey Bridgett. It may well be that
18 they were simply concentrating their attentions on that
19 discussion rather than on what they had been warned
20 about.
21 Again, a matter for you, of course, but plainly
22 that's going to involve a question of how long they were
23 sitting there chatting, and all of these questions
24 interrelate. How did the violence start? How quickly
25 after it did Mr Hamill get injured? How long were they
85
1 there chatting?
2 Finally, under this section, if the Land Rover crew
3 did indeed stay in their vehicle knowing that
4 Robert Hamill was being attacked, why did they do that?
5 Was it because they were outnumbered? Was it because he
6 was obviously a Catholic? Again, these are questions
7 that can be posed to them.
8 The next heading that may pose some interesting
9 questions is: what was the response to the warning and
10 to the disorder?
11 Firstly, on the part of the Land Rover crew, the
12 first question appears to be what the officers did once
13 they were alerted.
14 As I have said, their version is that immediately
15 they were alerted by the person pulling at Mr Neill,
16 they all got out. I have also said some of the Catholic
17 witnesses have accused them of not getting out until
18 either reinforcements or the ambulance arrived.
19 A number of Protestant witnesses have given
20 conflicting accounts which fall somewhere between the
21 two. Oral evidence of those witnesses who were at or
22 around the scene and who we can call will plainly have
23 to be evaluated, but in order to answer the question,
24 the contemporaneous radio traffic will also need to be
25 considered and may, as I have suggested, form quite
86
1 a useful framework of timing and sequence.
2 The second question under this is what steps the
3 Land Rover crew and the radio controller took to obtain
4 back-up. Again, the radio traffic may help on that.
5 The third question is what steps the police officers
6 took to protect Robert Hamill and others from assault
7 once they got out of the Land Rover.
8 They assert they did their best whilst overwhelmed,
9 while others say only two of them did anything active at
10 all. The question may be again: if two or more of them
11 held back once they had got out, why was that?
12 Again, was it because they were outnumbered and this
13 was a riot and they were fearful of their own safety, or
14 was it because they didn't mind what happened to
15 Mr Hamill?
16 Finally, under this heading the question may be
17 posed: what, if anything, did the officers see
18 Allister Hanvey do? If they saw him participating in
19 the attack, did they refrain from stopping him and, if
20 so, why?
21 That's a question not posed in order to attach any
22 degree of criminality to Mr Hanvey. Rather, it goes
23 directly to the next issue in the terms of reference one
24 needs to consider: did any of the officers get in the
25 way of the investigation specifically in order to
87
1 protect somebody they had seen, namely, Mr Hanvey?
2 Looking then at the reaction of the police, moving
3 from the four in the Land Rover to the back-up officers,
4 the first question that neatly falls to be addressed is:
5 at what stage in the disorder did they arrive?
6 I have suggested the materials show us a sequence
7 and a timing and it is obviously the subject, or will be
8 the subject, of evidence.
9 The second question naturally is: what did they do
10 when they got there? Then one might ask whether the
11 back-up officers could and should have done anything
12 more to contain violence or to administer first aid and
13 what impact any failings had on Mr Hamill's death.
14 It is fair to say that the question of
15 administration of first aid is one that carries rather
16 less weight now than it once might have done. The
17 reason for that is, in the early days after Mr Hamill's
18 death, as I have said, there was a distinct lack of
19 clarity about what caused that death. It was
20 speculated, as I have suggested, that oxygen starvation
21 may have played a part.
22 If that's right, then, of course, it may be
23 necessary to consider whether the police should have
24 given first aid so as to do something about that. As
25 I have said, though, it seems highly unlikely, though
88
1 a matter for you, once the medical evidence is out,
2 though that's still a live issue.
3 Finally for the back-up, if they could and should
4 have done more to protect those on the scene, what
5 stopped them? Again, did anybody deliberately refrain?
6 I move then to the second part of the terms of
7 reference, which is whether in substance any wrongful
8 act or omission by or within the RUC obstructed the
9 investigation of the death and whether there was due
10 diligence in relation to the investigation.
11 I have attempted to split this into three
12 components: firstly, the identification of suspects;
13 secondly, making a case against those suspects who were
14 identified; and, finally, the due diligence of agencies
15 other than the RUC.
16 Moving then to the identification of suspects, the
17 first issue which appears to arise under this is the use
18 of identification evidence. Again, it can be broken
19 down, bearing in mind, as I say, there were a lot of
20 police in the end on the scene. There were a number of
21 civilians on the scene.
22 The primary question must really be: which officers
23 saw who do what, and what did they do about it? So the
24 first question may be: what potential suspects and
25 witnesses were actually recognised at the scene by
89
1 officers?
2 The second question is whether any of those suspects
3 should have been arrested on the night before officers
4 were allowed to leave the scene. One, of course,
5 appreciates the difficulties if this was anything like
6 a riot, but you may be particularly interested in the
7 position of Wayne Lunt, who, while being let out of the
8 Land Rover, allegedly is the subject of two Catholics
9 coming up to the officer and saying, "Why are you
10 letting him go? He is one of those who done it".
11 There may be others, when the evidence comes out,
12 who officers should perhaps have taken some other steps
13 in relation to. It is a matter for you.
14 The third question in relation to the identification
15 of suspects is whether any debriefing took place. If
16 so, by whom, of whom, when and to what effect, because
17 it is remarkably unclear who took any command of getting
18 the information of the uniformed officers on the ground
19 about what they had seen in order to get the
20 investigation started.
21 The fourth question under this heading is whether
22 any such debriefing was adequate and, if not, why not?
23 There are a number of materials in relation to this,
24 including the public order manual, which sets, as it
25 were, the parameters for debriefing. There are a good
90
1 deal of conflicting statements made by officers about
2 what was done and by whom in the immediate aftermath in
3 relation to debriefing.
4 The next question may be: to what extent did
5 officers fail to tell detectives about suspects or
6 witnesses which might have led to the identification of
7 suspects?
8 It is a slightly distinct question from whether
9 there was a debriefing. Rather, it is whether of their
10 own volition officers could and should have come up with
11 names. It will entail an assessment of the adequacy of
12 the statements they made, the notebook entries they made
13 and what the uniformed officers thought fit to tell the
14 detectives when they were questioned.
15 Then, if there is any failure on the part of
16 uniformed officers to tell detectives what they saw, you
17 may wish to know whether any such failure resulted from
18 inadequate debriefing, whether it was from incompetence
19 or deliberate omission on the part of uniformed
20 officers.
21 That, of course, particularly raises the question
22 whether Reserve Constable Atkinson suppressed the
23 information he had, whatever it was, about
24 Allister Hanvey. Did he see him? What did he see him
25 doing? The resolution of that touches on the question
91
1 whether he made the telephone call on 27th April. In
2 turn, this gives rise to a number of subsidiary
3 questions, which most conveniently fall to be considered
4 in relation to the later stages of the investigation.
5 It will also be necessary perhaps to decide why
6 other officers, including Sergeant P89, did not tell
7 detectives about their sightings of Mr Hanvey on the
8 night. For example, as I say, Mr P89 appears to
9 have been warned by Mr Atkinson that Mr Hanvey, who was
10 being aggressive to the sergeant, was a martial arts
11 expert, and it took until about 2000 or 2001 for the
12 sergeant to tell anybody about that.
13 Seventhly then, you may wish to consider whether
14 press releases issued by the RUC in the aftermath of the
15 assault demonstrated a conscious or unconscious desire
16 to put out a version of events which portrayed the
17 police or Protestants in a false light and have deterred
18 Catholics from coming forward with evidence.
19 There has been a fair amount of controversy about
20 the press releases, their accuracy or inaccuracy and the
21 motivation behind any inaccuracy there was, and we will
22 look at those.
23 Then, in the investigative stages still, one might
24 move on to the use of contemporaneous materials. The
25 first question that appears to present itself is whether
92
1 there was an adequate forensic strategy. If not,
2 whether that was deliberate or otherwise. This is
3 a question that covers a range of potential
4 opportunities from taping off the crime screen, taking
5 DNA samples through to all sorts of other potential
6 methods of garnering forensic evidence.
7 The second question perhaps is whether the RUC
8 obtained, viewed and then made proper use of the video
9 recordings, if any, that were available. There were
10 a number of business premises in the vicinity of the
11 town centre. Some had CCTV. Some of those had tapes.
12 Some tapes were seized and were viewed, but they were
13 then returned. No copies were kept. You may need to
14 form the view about the adequacy of the exercise and
15 explore the reason for any inadequacy. It is only fair
16 to say there is controversy about whether the police
17 have accepted at some stage that there was something on
18 some CCTV tapes.
19 Next, I turn to the use of witness evidence. The
20 first question perhaps is whether the RUC took adequate
21 steps to obtain information which may have led to the
22 identification of suspects from those who were with
23 Robert Hamill at the time of the attack. If they didn't
24 do that, why didn't they do that?
25 The second question is whether the RUC took adequate
93
1 steps to obtain that sort of investigation from others
2 who were in the centre of Portadown at the time of the
3 attack. Again, if not, why not?
4 It may be helpful to consider separately, in respect
5 of Tracey Clarke and Timothy Jameson, whether their
6 evidence was properly used and, if not, why not.
7 For example, having got the witness statements,
8 could they have been used at a trial by being read on
9 the basis that the witnesses were not prepared to give
10 evidence because of fear? Were perhaps witnesses primed
11 to say things to leading counsel which meant that those
12 provisions for reading evidence couldn't be used?
13 Separately, in respect of Timothy Jameson, the
14 question may arise whether the detectives were actually
15 told he should be treated as a suspect or whether, as
16 they say, they were simply informed that he might be
17 a material witness, and, if they were told that he
18 should be treated as a suspect, why didn't they do it?
19 I move on to making a case against suspects. I am
20 dealing here only with those suspects who were actually
21 arrested. If I deal firstly with the general approach
22 to this and then move on to the development of cases
23 against individual suspects, in general the first
24 question may be whether an adequate investigative
25 structure was put in place for the assault and
94
1 subsequently for the murder investigation.
2 There are a number of steps which one would perhaps
3 expect to see in that, and no doubt you will wish to
4 consider the degree to which they should have been put
5 in place and whether they were: the appointment of
6 a senior investigating officer; the implementation of
7 a HOLMES system; the use of a policy book; a witness
8 strategy; an arrest strategy.
9 If there was a failure to put in place any part of
10 those processes, why was that and with what result?
11 These are matters that have been considered by
12 internal investigations previously? They will be the
13 subject of evidence from at least Mr Murray and that
14 will be critical evidence.
15 The second question under this heading was whether
16 the murder investigation was hampered by the interplay
17 between it and the neglect investigation. As I have
18 said, Detective Chief Superintendent McBurney headed
19 both. Was the fact that he headed both to hamper one or
20 other of them and, if so, was that deliberate?
21 The third question under this general approach to
22 witnesses -- and suspects, rather, is what roles the
23 various detectives had in the investigation. In
24 particular, it may be important to determine whether
25 Detective Inspector Irwin had any substantial
95
1 responsibility or whether, as he asserts, it was merely
2 a support role as office manager.
3 If I look then briefly to the individual suspects,
4 there were a number of people identified, and, indeed,
5 arrested and detained: Mr Hanvey, Mr Lunt, Mr Forbes,
6 Mr Bridgett, Mr Allen, Mr Robinson, Mr Hobson and
7 Mr Woods. Of course, as emerged from my brief run
8 through the facts this morning, they were treated
9 separately by the DPP and by leading counsel, quite
10 properly, and obviously one looks to see how they were
11 treated individually by the RUC.
12 The first question under this is likely to be: when
13 they were arrested, was an adequate search strategy
14 adopted? If not, why not, and with what consequences?
15 The second question is whether any potential
16 witnesses were properly identified, interviewed and made
17 available. Was information from them properly followed
18 up? If not, why not, and, again, with what result?
19 The third question is whether forensic evidence was
20 sought and deployed adequately. Again, if not, why not,
21 and with what consequence?
22 Finally, in respect of all of these, the fourth
23 question is whether a recommendation for prosecution was
24 properly formulated. If not, why not, and with what
25 consequence?
96
1 Of course, in respect of Mr Hanvey -- that is
2 Allister Hanvey -- additional issues arise. These go,
3 of course, directly to the heart of an express part of
4 the terms of reference. Was he tipped off by
5 Mr Atkinson to get rid of his clothing and did he do
6 that? This is a question that gives rise to a whole
7 line of enquiries, in particular two distinct strands of
8 them.
9 The first was whether Tracey Clarke was telling the
10 truth about the matter in her witness statement dated
11 10th May and whether further enquiries should have been
12 made of her and her family.
13 As we know from the much later re-investigation in
14 2000/2001, the result of further enquiries in 1997 could
15 well have been to identify a jacket other than the
16 jacket Mr Hanvey claimed to be the only one and evidence
17 that it was destroyed.
18 The second strand of investigation about this is
19 whether Andrea McKee was telling the truth about
20 conspiring with the Atkinsons to cover up the telephone
21 call, because you may think it is quite likely, if there
22 was a conspiracy to cover up the telephone call, then
23 there was something in that telephone call that people
24 wanted covering up. That is likely to lead to some sort
25 of conclusion that Mr Atkinson saw something he did not
97
1 want to be made public.
2 Secondly, on this why did the RUC not act sooner and
3 more successfully to prosecute Mr Atkinson over tipping
4 off Mr Hanvey? Again, I have set out the bald dates.
5 By 16th May 1997, they had substantial information.
6 Again, what effect on the murder investigation did the
7 failure to do that have? At any stage from
8 16th May 1997 right down to the point where the
9 potential prosecution against Mr Atkinson was dropped,
10 could they and should they have got Mr Atkinson to give
11 evidence about what he saw Mr Hanvey do, if anything?
12 You may think that the link between Mr Hanvey and
13 Mr Atkinson is a very important one in all sorts of
14 ways.
15 Then, finally, I turn to the question of other
16 agencies and the question of due diligence on their
17 part. There are four potential lines of enquiry here
18 which we would suggest respectfully.
19 The first is in respect of the pathologist, that is
20 Dr Professor Crane, and the neuropathologist, Dr Herron,
21 relating to the time it took to produce the reports
22 which emerged in 1997 as to the cause of death.
23 Next, there is the forensic science report.
24 Mr Marshall, whose name I have mentioned before, was the
25 forensic scientist who dealt with the samples that were
98
1 taken at the scene and matching. Again, his report took
2 months to produce, and, again, it may be a matter of
3 interest to the Inquiry to test why that is and whether
4 that was due diligence in relation to the investigation.
5 Thirdly, in relation to the ICPC, I have said that
6 the ICPC had no power to arrogate to itself oversight of
7 the investigation into the allegation against
8 Mr Atkinson. Nonetheless, it took, as it were, some
9 part by being at an interview and by considering the
10 question whether anything more should be done in
11 relation to Mr Atkinson when it signed off the neglect
12 complaint investigation. The person who was charged
13 with writing the report which led to the signing off is
14 a Mr Mullan. We are going to call him and ask him about
15 that.
16 Finally, the office of the DPP for its involvement
17 in the murder investigation generally, and, in
18 particular, the want of convictions of those who
19 murdered Mr Hamill.
20 Those are the matters which, as I say, with as much
21 diffidence as I can muster, appear to us, having read
22 all the documents, may be valuable ways of looking at
23 the evidence when it comes out.
24 That's all I am proposing to say in respect of the
25 general opening and, of course, at your invitation, sir,
99
1 I will be making very short serial openings before each
2 group of evidence as it comes out, but I do know that
3 some others of my learned friends wish to make some
4 remarks at this stage.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr McGrory?
6 Opening speech by MR MCGRORY
7 MR McGRORY: Mr Chairman, members of the Panel, I am
8 grateful to Mr Underwood for his very both succinct yet
9 comprehensive opening of the chronology and the factual
10 background to this Inquiry.
11 As the Panel know, I appear with Mr McKenna for the
12 Hamill family; that's his immediate family, his mother
13 and his brothers and sisters, his father regrettably not
14 having lived to see the commencement of oral hearings of
15 this Inquiry.
16 It is the unshakeable belief of the Hamill family,
17 sir, that Robert was murdered because of his religion,
18 because he was a Catholic, and for no other reason, by
19 those from that section of the Protestant or Unionist
20 community so imbued with hatred of those of the Catholic
21 faith that, to be involved in the attack of a young man
22 because of his religion, the knocking of him to the
23 ground, the kicking of him in the head and the jumping
24 on him to the extent that it caused his death was
25 a badge of honour, and not something of which they
100
1 should have been deeply ashamed.
2 It is also, sir, of very serious concern to the
3 Hamill family that this terrible incident occurred
4 within feet of a police patrol that was sent to the
5 centre of Portadown where the incident occurred for the
6 very purpose of ensuring that there was no sectarian
7 incident of this or any other nature, and that, in being
8 sent to that particular point, those who were charged
9 with that duty were very much aware that this particular
10 part of Portadown was known as a flashpoint for
11 sectarian conflict between the two very polarised
12 communities in that town.
13 Now, the Panel has already heard something of the
14 demography and make-up of Portadown, which was a deeply
15 divided town with a significant majority of its
16 inhabitants from the Protestant part of the community
17 with those from the Catholic or Nationalist part of the
18 community living in an area around Obins Street and
19 Garvaghy Road to which those who were leaving the Hall
20 on the night of this incident were heading through the
21 centre of the town.
22 That's not the only unusual feature of the town, of
23 course. The town is situated in the County of Armagh,
24 which has, perhaps, a unique and terrible history of
25 sectarian conflict throughout the history of the
101
1 divisions on this island and, of course, the police
2 force, of which it has been said by many since this
3 incident that they were at least neglectful, if not
4 deliberately guilty of misfeasance of their office in
5 the handling of this incident, was no ordinary police
6 force either, but it was a police force which has
7 perhaps uniquely in these islands found itself to the
8 forefront of decades of bitter conflict.
9 Of course, the Panel is aware of the fact that there
10 are numerous allegations of neglect on the part of those
11 police, of the ignoring of warnings, indeed of the
12 direct intervention by one of the officers on duty that
13 night to ensure that possibly one of the alleged
14 perpetrators would never be apprehended. There have
15 been allegations of a failure of senior police officers
16 to investigate the murder, and, indeed, to investigate
17 the allegations of misconduct within their own force.
18 There have been allegations, perhaps, about the
19 reasons for the failed prosecutions, both into the
20 actual murder and into the subsequent allegations of
21 police misconduct, and of the manufacturing of the alibi
22 about which the Panel has heard in some brief detail
23 this morning.
24 The family of Robert Hamill is left, amidst all of
25 those allegations, with a deeply held suspicion that
102
1 those failures, if they are upheld, those alleged
2 failures, were also directly connected to the fact that
3 Robert Hamill was a Catholic, and that they, as his
4 family, were afforded a second-class investigation in
5 every respect.
6 It is in that context that this Panel, sir, and
7 members of the Panel, are charged with the most delicate
8 and most difficult duty of determining whether or not
9 all of those allegations are indeed sustained, and, if
10 they are sustained, why that should be the case.
11 Now, in my respectful submission, it is perhaps
12 difficult to progress much further without asking the
13 Panel to indulge me with some little time to go into the
14 political and religious history of the area of Armagh
15 and Portadown and indeed of this part of the island of
16 Ireland.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: If you say its purpose is to help us to
18 understand the surroundings to this, by all means.
19 MR McGRORY: Indeed, sir. It is for no other reason that
20 I would ask your indulgence in order to do that. I am
21 grateful for that indication.
22 Before I do so, I would like to, first of all, talk
23 for a little while about Robert Hamill, because first
24 and foremost we must never lose sight, as you yourself,
25 sir, have said in your opening remarks this morning,
103
1 that a family has lost a brother and a son. We must, of
2 course, have respect for that. It is with the family's
3 instruction and their wishes that I would inform the
4 Panel of something about the man who was murdered on
5 that fateful morning.
6 The Hamill family, sir, came from the Obins Avenue
7 area of Portadown. It was a Nationalist area which had
8 been targeted on many occasions by Loyalists throughout
9 the 1970s and 1980s. He was one of ten children, and
10 life for the family was a financial struggle. They were
11 a deeply religious family. All were brought up in the
12 Catholic faith, and it was a household in which the
13 Rosary was said every night, and for which many people
14 were prayed for every night and in which the children
15 were taught to respect, not just themselves, but others
16 of all religions. It was a household in which members
17 of both communities were openly welcomed. There were
18 cups of tea and plates of biscuits produced for
19 visitors.
20 Mr Hamill senior, Robert's father, had an interest
21 in greyhounds and Robert helped his father with the
22 walking and training of the dogs. Robert himself was,
23 if somewhat shy, a popular young man. His sisters say
24 he was good looking and attracted the attention of their
25 friends. He was known as a generous young man. He
104
1 always paid his housekeeping to his mother on time when
2 he lived at home.
3 One of the last things he did before he died was to
4 buy his mother a suite of furniture. He liked to laugh
5 and he liked to tell jokes. Shortly after his first
6 child was born, the family have talked about how he
7 conducted a bedside vigil with his eldest son who
8 contracted meningitis. In the belief of the family, he,
9 in fact, alerted the hospital staff to a deterioration
10 in the child's condition and perhaps saved his life. He
11 adored his children. He had two boys. He had
12 a daughter who was born 12 weeks after he was murdered.
13 He was an utterly non-political person.
14 The family regarded themselves in the broadest sense
15 as Nationalists, but politics was never discussed in the
16 household. All the family knew was that their father
17 was an admirer of John Hume, but the father kept a tight
18 rein on his children and nobody was ever brought into
19 the conflict that was raging around them in the estates
20 of Portadown, in the County of Armagh and in the
21 jurisdiction of Northern Ireland throughout their youth.
22 Although throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the family
23 heard stories and personally knew a number of people who
24 had been killed in the conflict, quite a number of
25 Catholics who were killed in the area,
105
1 a Martin McConville, Felix Joe Hughes, Anthony Duffy,
2 and a Jimmy McCann and others were all men from
3 Portadown who were killed because of their religion and
4 who were personally known to the family. Yet, at no
5 time did the family become politically active or feel
6 politically motivated in any way.
7 There was a household which was only yards from
8 a barrier dividing the two sections of the community in
9 Obins Street, in Obins Avenue. They experienced stoning
10 of the house and sectarian abuse having been shouted at
11 them over the barrier. They could see from their house
12 the Loyalist bonfires on 12th July.
13 His sister, Fiona, was particularly close to him, as
14 she was only 11 months older than Robert. They were
15 often regarded as twins. She recalls particularly how
16 on their wedding day, which was only a few months before
17 this incident, she was able to dance with him on the
18 floor and he told her how much he had loved her as
19 a sister on that occasion.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Forgive me, Mr McGrory, for interrupting you.
21 The Panel can base its report on the evidence which we
22 hear. I suspect that you are going well outside any
23 evidence we are expected to hear. It is one thing to
24 speak in general of the violence in the area, which is
25 no doubt common knowledge. I think you are descending
106
1 to the particular in a way which is perhaps not
2 permissible.
3 MR McGRORY: As you please, sir. Of course, nothing that
4 I have said is based on material which will not be
5 before the Panel by way of evidence from the family, if
6 it, of course, is permitted, but I am ready to move on
7 in any event.
8 If I may move, sir, to the historical and political
9 context in which these events occurred, in particular
10 the historical place that Armagh has in the history of
11 this island.
12 Armagh is the smallest of the six counties in the
13 jurisdiction of Northern Ireland, although I understand
14 the most populated. It is also a place of very ancient
15 lineage, it having originally been the district of Uladh,
16 which gave its name to the nine-county province of
17 Ulster subsequently. It is also the area from which the
18 mythological stories of the Ulster Cycle emerged and the
19 home of the Red Branch Knights, whose symbol of the
20 Red Hand, of course, has later become synonymous with
21 the province of Ulster.
22 Portadown lies within that county. It, itself, did
23 not come to prominence until perhaps the 19th century,
24 whenever the railways arrived in the Northern part of
25 the island. It became known as the hub of Armagh.
107
1 Armagh itself has a peculiar position within the
2 political and religious history of this island, which
3 has brought about a situation where the religion and
4 national identity have become intertwined.
5 I need not go into great detail about how that
6 happened. Suffice to say it has its origins in the
7 plantations of Ulster which occurred following the
8 flight of the earls in 1607 when the English Crown
9 regained control of the island of Ireland after many
10 years of conflict and of having been reduced to
11 occupation only of the area of the Pale, which was
12 a narrow area from Dublin to Drogheda in County Down.
13 It began in earnest, during the period of the 1640s,
14 to ensure, ironically, that the Province of Ulster,
15 which was the province that had given it most difficulty
16 under the O'Neills in terms of subjugating the island of
17 Ireland would never give it such trouble again by
18 systematically bringing to that area many, many
19 thousands of settlers from the area of Scotland, Wales
20 and principally the north of England.
21 Now, it also planted to some extent the Province of
22 Munster, but, for various historical reasons, it was the
23 Province of Ulster which was most densely populated with
24 people of the Protestant faith, fundamental Protestant
25 faith. That, of course, has had its political
108
1 implications right to this day.
2 It wasn't a smooth transition by any means. The
3 Protestant people who were brought to this island, and
4 their successors, were not necessarily always as
5 faithful and obedient to the Crown as those who brought
6 them here perhaps might have wished.
7 There were rebellions in or about the 1640s and in
8 the 17th and 18th centuries in which many people of the
9 Protestant faith took part, rebellions against the
10 Crown. Albeit there were laws brought in throughout the
11 1700s which sought to discriminate against, not just
12 Catholics, but against those of the more fundamentalist
13 Protestant faith, who were lumped together as those who
14 were the objects of those penal laws, but there emerged
15 throughout the 17th and 18th centuries quite a number of
16 rural groups which agitated with each other.
17 They have names which resonate to this day: Peep
18 O'Day Boys and the Defenders, who were Catholics, Peep
19 O'Day Boys being Protestants. These were agrarian farm
20 workers who formed these groups in order to defend their
21 territory as they saw it.
22 Indeed, out of one of those groups, the Peep O'Day
23 Boys, was formed subsequently the Orange Order in
24 Loughgall in the County of Armagh.
25 In terms of the political development of the island,
109
1 there was an agitation towards the later part of the
2 18th century for some form of home rule and
3 self-Government. In 1782, a Parliament was formed and
4 it was called Grattan's Parliament.
5 Now, in the subsequent years of Grattan's
6 Parliament, of course, there occurred in other countries
7 significant events which had influence on the thinking
8 of the island of Ireland. Then most significantly, of
9 course, was the French revolution of 1789, which
10 inspired a group of Protestant gentlemen, largely based
11 in the City of Belfast and led by Theobald Wolfe Tone to
12 form an organisation called the United Irishmen's
13 Society in 1791.
14 The United Irishmen were imbued with a sense of
15 liberty and of an emerging national identity which
16 associated itself with the island of Ireland against the
17 interests of England, and, to its eternal credit, it was
18 an organisation which sought to include Catholic,
19 Protestant and dissenter within its movement, but it did
20 so alongside the existing and now deeply embedded
21 sectarian tensions in rural areas, particularly the area
22 of County Armagh.
23 The 1798 rebellion which followed was, of course,
24 an unmitigated disaster, with several French fleets
25 either failing to land on the island of Ireland due to
110
1 inclement weather or having landed several weeks after
2 the supposed rebellion had already started and had been
3 suppressed. Thereafter, the English Parliament decided
4 that it would be better to bring the island of Ireland
5 in its entirety into the political supervision of the
6 Crown and brought about the Act of Union of 1800.
7 Perhaps I should mention, first of all, the
8 Orange Order, which is an important organisation, not
9 just in terms of how the deep sectarian divisions
10 developed in the area of Portadown, but in terms of how
11 the police force that was in existence at the time
12 Robert Hamill was killed related to it.
13 The Orange Order -- and I quote from a historian
14 called Jim Smith, and his publication "The Men of No
15 Property: The Origins of the Orange Order", which says
16 as follows:
17 "The Orange Order was forged in the crucible of
18 sectarian conflict in County Armagh, the most densely
19 populated county in the country. Armagh was a microcosm
20 of the late 18th century Ireland. Each of the three
21 major religions/denominations was represented roughly in
22 equal proportions, with a Catholic majority in the poor
23 south, an Episcopalian majority in the north and
24 Presbyterians most numerous across the centre. Each
25 confessional group had a corresponding ethnic identity:
111
1 Irish Catholic, Scots Presbyterian and English
2 Episcopalian, and each was present to some degree in all
3 areas of the county. That finely balanced religious
4 demography itself helps to account for the persistence
5 of sectarian tensions."
6 If I may say so, that about sums up the political
7 and sectarian situation in County Armagh.
8 I don't propose to go into too much detail about the
9 subsequent events throughout the rest of the 18th and
10 19th centuries, but I would like, with the Panel's
11 permission, to perhaps focus on events around the turn
12 of the 19th and 20th century, because they are important
13 to the creation of this state which is known as Northern
14 Ireland and to the development of the RUC as a police
15 force from the original police force which was called
16 the Royal Irish Constabulary and which was founded by
17 Sir Robert Peel in 1836.
18 As the 20th century dawned and preparations were
19 being made, well, perhaps prior to the First World War,
20 a significant political event came about in England by
21 the election of the Liberal Government, which was
22 converted to the home rule cause which was gaining
23 significant ground on the island of Ireland.
24 The concentration of Unionists in the north spurred
25 a significant movement of protest against any possible
112
1 home rule for the island of Ireland. That did not take
2 into account the fact that there was a significant
3 number of people concentrated in the Northern part of
4 the island who were opposed to such a development. That
5 group in particular was closely linked to the English
6 Conservative party, which will become relevant, but they
7 formed a group called the Ulster Volunteer Force, which
8 was a mass movement. Sir Edward Carson, who was
9 a member of the Conservative party, led the movement
10 against home rule, and initiated the signing of
11 a covenant by 45,000 people at Belfast City Hall, but
12 also side by side with that there was formed an armed
13 movement called the Ulster Volunteer Force.
14 As the Home Rule bill, despite the protests of the
15 Northern Unionists, was passed but was shelved because
16 of the onset of World War I. Tensions were relieved by
17 the onset of war in the sense that the UVF, as it had
18 been formed, became the Ulster division of the British
19 army during the course of the war, which, of course,
20 suffered very heavy casualties during World War I. Of
21 course, many Nationalists from the north and south parts
22 of the island of Ireland also joined the British army at
23 that time.
24 After World War I, those of the UVF that returned
25 were, of course, by this time highly trained soldiers.
113
1 The issue of home rule for the island of Ireland had not
2 gone away. By 1918, the British Government felt it was
3 obliged to hold a general election, and in the 1918
4 election Sinn Fein won 73 of the 104 Irish seats
5 Westminster Parliament.
6 Some months later, in January 1919, two RIC men were
7 murdered in Soloheadbeg in County Tipperary and that
8 started the Irish War of Independence which raged until
9 a truce in June of 1921. There were a significant
10 number of casualties in 1919, but in 1920 it is
11 interesting to note that that 53 RIC men were killed
12 during the course of that war of independence. So the
13 front line of that war of independence, from its
14 inception in Soloheadbeg, in the frontline, was the RIC,
15 the Royal Irish Constabulary, which was an armed police
16 force.
17 Throughout this time, matters developed in the
18 north, in that there was serious concern that under this
19 pressure during the course of this war of independence
20 that the RIC could not hold the line in the north.
21 There was some considerable mistrust amongst the
22 Unionist population of the RIC, 80% of which was
23 Catholic and many of whom hailed from the southern part
24 of the country and were considered perhaps to have
25 sympathies with the Irish Republican Army which was at
114
1 war basically with the RIC itself.
2 The British Government introduced auxiliaries to the
3 RIC and boosted its numbers because of the numerous
4 resignations of RIC members, who felt they could not
5 sustain this conflict, by people called the Black and
6 Tans. There were many notorious incidents which, of
7 course, blackened the names of those two organisations,
8 most notably the killing of quite a number of people in
9 Croke Park in 1920.
10 In the north, the UVF was revived in this political
11 context. It was led by a Brigadier FB Crozier, who was
12 an organiser in the original UVF prior to the First
13 World War. The British Government was very concerned
14 that there was in existence a paramilitary organisation
15 over which it had no control.
16 By this time, Carson had retired and
17 Sir James Craig, who was both a Minister in the
18 Conservative Government and the leader of the Ulster
19 Unionists, who had now formed themselves under the
20 umbrella of the Ulster Unionist Council, was asked to
21 legitimise the UVF by forming an auxiliary Constabulary
22 to come to the assistance of the Royal Irish
23 Constabulary. He did so in the form of the Ulster
24 Special Constabulary, which took three forms: the
25 A Specials, the B Specials and the C Specials.
115
1 This was a very considerable addition in resources
2 to the RIC. The number of the B Specials reached in the
3 region of 20,000 within a fairly short space of time.
4 Now, by 1921, the British Government felt that
5 something had to be done about the island of Ireland and
6 it initiated talks between the IRA leaders in Dublin and
7 the Northern Unionists. It promised the Northern
8 Unionists and delivered on the promise of the creation
9 of a political entity which would reflect the dominant
10 position that they held in this particular part of the
11 island, and they introduced the Government of Ireland
12 Act, which effectively partitioned the country.
13 The original Government of Ireland Act catered for
14 a boundary commission which was to examine the extent of
15 the Northern political entity which at first was
16 restricted to six counties and which it was hoped and
17 thought by many Nationalists would be extended to cover
18 the nine countries of Ulster, but that, of course, never
19 happened. But no power was devolved to the Northern
20 administration or would be devolved to it until the
21 conflict with the IRA and the war of independence was
22 resolved.
23 Lloyd George introduced peace talks following the
24 ceasefire which didn't occur for some months. When he
25 did, agreement was reached concerning the creation of
116
1 a free state in the southern part of the Ireland, but
2 the issue of policing, of course, which I hope I have
3 displayed, was a very difficult issue for the
4 Government, and had to be resolved.
5 The RUC came into existence in June of 1922,
6 following the disbandment of the RIC, but an agreement
7 was reached between the British Government and
8 Michael Collins and James Craig concerning the make-up
9 of the RUC, which, in fact, led to a significant change
10 in the religious make-up of that particular police
11 force. So it went from being 80% Catholic, as the RIC
12 in 1922, to being about initially 40% Catholic when the
13 RUC was set up.
14 The reason for that was that there was an agreement
15 that a certain number of the new RUC had to be Catholic.
16 That would reflect the religious demographic of the
17 Northern counties which it was tasked with policing,
18 but, of course, that was a significant reduction in
19 terms of the number of Catholics that had been in the
20 police up until that point, and the numbers were made up
21 from within the ranks of the Specials.
22 Indeed, the texts and authorities on this matter
23 would suggest that significant numbers of the RIC were
24 brought into the RUC at a high-ranking level and fairly
25 close to retirement and that they were not replaced, and
117
1 that, indeed, by 1927, the overall proportion of
2 Catholics had reduced to 17.3%.
3 Now, there also, of course, remained in existence
4 the three special units, which were reduced to the
5 B Specials shortly after partition. The B Specials, in
6 fact, remained in existence throughout the 1920s, 1930s,
7 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, not being disbanded until 1970.
8 Indeed, they were replaced by two separate units, the
9 Ulster Defence Regiment and the RUC Reserve, about some
10 of whose members the Panel, sir, will hear a great deal
11 during the course of these proceedings.
12 The purpose of these remarks concerning the history
13 and development of the RUC is to perhaps, in as neutral
14 a way as possible, give the Panel some flavour of the
15 fact that this was no ordinary police force. This was
16 a police force which had an historical development in
17 the context of conflict.
18 In saying so, that is not necessarily in any way to
19 blame the members of that police force, but that police
20 force and the members of it inescapably saw themselves
21 as performing a political role as defenders of
22 a political idea and a political entity. That is not
23 least because those very same policemen and women were
24 the subject of a campaign of attack and murder by the
25 modern manifestation of the Irish Republican Army and
118
1 other Republican paramilitary groups throughout the
2 1970s and 1980s and 1990s.
3 So, when I make these remarks, it is not in any way
4 to cast any aspersions on the honesty or integrity or
5 good faith, in policing terms, of the vast majority of
6 policemen and women within the RUC, but it is perhaps
7 some attempt to explain that, if there were
8 a significant number of people within that particular
9 police force who perhaps viewed their priorities
10 differently than they ought to have done, that there is
11 an historical background to that.
12 In terms of the modern make-up of the RUC, the
13 Labour MP, Mr McNamara, asked a question in 1997 of the
14 Speaker of the House about the make-up of the RUC. It
15 was asked in September of 1997. So the date of these
16 figures has a certain significance. The full-time RUC
17 numbered 8,500 in September 1997. Of those, only 701
18 were from the Catholic faith. The RUC Reserve numbered
19 3,000 and, of those, only 200 were of the Catholic
20 faith.
21 Now, once again, I must stress that that is not in
22 itself in any way intended to be an indictment of the
23 RUC. There are many reasons why Catholics refused to
24 join the RUC throughout the period of the modern
25 troubles from 1970 to the modern day, not least the fact
119
1 that to do so was to put their own lives very seriously
2 at risk, but the submission is made simply to provide
3 a basis for the deeply held concerns on the part of the
4 Hamill family that those who were charged with the
5 responsibility of ensuring that there was no sectarian
6 conflict in the centre of Portadown on the night of
7 26th/27th April 1997 -- how they perhaps manifestly
8 failed in that responsibility.
9 Also germane to this issue is perhaps the more
10 immediate political issues that were developing in terms
11 of marching which exacerbated the sectarian tensions in
12 Portadown throughout the late 1980s and 1990s. The
13 Anglo-Irish agreement which was signed in 1985 to the
14 great discomfort of many Unionists, it allowed the Irish
15 Government to have a consultative role in the affairs of
16 Northern Ireland.
17 In 1985, there was a row erupted in the Portadown
18 area concerning the banning of a Nationalist accordion
19 parade in 1985 in the area of Obins Street. It was felt
20 that pressure had been brought to bear on the British
21 authorities the following year when a Protestant march
22 was banned on the Easter Monday, and that in itself
23 sparked a great deal of sectarian conflict throughout
24 the whole jurisdiction. That was known as the --
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Your reading of developments since then
120
1 shows, doesn't it, that things simply went from bad to
2 worse?
3 MR McGRORY: Yes. I need not trouble the Panel with any --
4 THE CHAIRMAN: That's perhaps an adequate summary of the
5 position that was reached when the troubles were at
6 their highest.
7 MR McGRORY: Yes, indeed. Indeed, this incident happened in
8 1997, which was the year perhaps of the -- I think the
9 third year of a series of years when there was conflict
10 with the Drumcree march. I need not trouble the Panel
11 any further about the detail of that.
12 I am grateful, sir, to Mr Underwood for his
13 comprehensive outlining of the issues, the detailed
14 issues, on which the Panel must make findings of fact,
15 issues concerning whether or not there was any wrongful
16 act or omission by or within the RUC, which facilitated
17 Robert's death or obstructed the investigation, or,
18 indeed, whether attempts were made to do so, and whether
19 any such act or omission was intentional or negligent,
20 and whether the investigation of his death was carried
21 out with due diligence and to make recommendations.
22 In my respectful submission, the Panel is obliged to
23 consider, not just factually, whether or not any of
24 those admissions or acts of neglect or obstruction that
25 are alleged did occur, and, if they did occur, why they
121
1 occurred, and if in considering why they occurred,
2 whether or not the fact that Robert Hamill was
3 a Catholic might have influenced those agencies in their
4 conduct of the various investigation and enquiries into
5 the death of Robert Hamill.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much.
7 Yes, Mr Wolfe?
8 Opening speech by MR WOLFE
9 MR WOLFE: Sir, and members of the Panel, I am grateful for
10 this opportunity to make a brief opening on behalf of
11 the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
12 The events of the early morning of 27th April 1997
13 in Portadown and the untimely death of Robert Hamill
14 11 days later was one of a large number of sectarian
15 incidents which sadly punctuated the 30 years of
16 conflict in Northern Ireland.
17 The killing of Mr Hamill has been condemned by all
18 right-thinking people. The killing represented a tragic
19 waste of a young life, and in that sense was reflective
20 of much of what occurred during the conflict here. It
21 is a matter of record that, during the troubles, the
22 Royal Ulster Constabulary, the predecessor of today's
23 police service, was often called upon to take action to
24 protect those whose lives were placed in danger, and to
25 stand firmly against those who would threaten, maim or
122
1 kill.
2 It is acknowledged that for various reasons this
3 description of the role of the police is not shared by
4 everyone in this society and, indeed, my learned friend
5 Mr McGrory has reflected upon some of the historical
6 reasons for that. The debate around policing in
7 Northern Ireland has in the past often been polarised
8 and controversial, and it is a matter of record that
9 until very recently there hadn't been widespread
10 agreement about the principles which ought to underpin
11 policing in this jurisdiction.
12 In his opening remarks, my learned friend, Leading
13 Counsel for the Inquiry, has reflected a view that
14 Mr Hamill's tragic death occurred at a time when there
15 was a great mistrust of policing and the criminal
16 justice system on the part of sections of the Catholic
17 community in Northern Ireland.
18 It is, of course, accepted by the PSNI that, in
19 1997, some, and perhaps many, Catholics in Northern
20 Ireland mistrusted the policing and criminal justice
21 systems. However, it would be quite wrong, in my
22 respectful submission, to assume that the whole of
23 a diverse Catholic community were of that view.
24 For that matter, it might equally be said that
25 a section of the Protestant and Unionist community
123
1 mistrusted the police and were antagonistic towards the
2 police. Moreover, the extent of any mistrust, the
3 reasons for it and the consequences of it do not admit
4 of easy or straightforward answers. The task of
5 policing in a divided society presented the RUC with
6 many challenges, as it still does the PSNI.
7 It will be important for this Inquiry, in my
8 respectful submission, to develop a sophisticated
9 understanding of the context in which the police were
10 working in 1997, and, in doing so, it will wish to avoid
11 any over-simplification which places the police and the
12 entire Catholic community in a "them" and "us"
13 straitjacket.
14 Of course, members of the Inquiry, it would be naive
15 to think that any policing service or organisation can
16 always carry out its work without making mistakes. It
17 has been reported that the police officers who dealt
18 with the assault on Mr Hamill or who investigated its
19 consequences made many mistakes or, worse, deliberately
20 obstructed the pursuit of justice.
21 The purpose of this Inquiry is at least in part to
22 uncover the truth regarding police action or inaction in
23 the events surrounding Mr Hamill's death. It may be
24 that some of what has been said and written about the
25 matter has been inaccurate and exaggerated. Allegations
124
1 have been made which, on one view, have been selective
2 or lacking in evidence. There has been much, it might
3 be said, in the way of unhelpful speculation.
4 The PSNI has no doubt that the Inquiry provides
5 an important opportunity to examine the veracity of
6 allegations that have been made against police and
7 others and to subject them to a forensic scrutiny. This
8 will be in everyone's interests.
9 Therefore, members of the Inquiry, today the Police
10 Service of Northern Ireland welcomes the opportunity to
11 actively participate in a process which has been
12 designed, in the words of leading counsel, to shine
13 a powerful and unbiased spotlight on the public concerns
14 that give rise to the Inquiry being established so that
15 the truth can be revealed.
16 The success of this exercise, I venture to suggest,
17 will, of course, depend on all of the participants
18 committing themselves to revealing the truth as it is
19 known to them without fear or favour. The PSNI has no
20 hesitation in giving its full commitment to assisting
21 the Inquiry with its work so that the truth can be
22 demonstrated for all to see. The PSNI has already given
23 itself to energetically cooperating with the Inquiry in
24 its preparatory work and this has already been the
25 subject of positive comment. The PSNI will continue to
125
1 work in a spirit of openness and transparency as the
2 Inquiry commences the crucial task of hearing the
3 evidence.
4 The success of the Inquiry will also require
5 a thoroughgoing commitment to avoiding any assumptions
6 of fact. The PSNI welcomes the commitment to that
7 objective given by yourself, sir, in your opening
8 remarks and indeed by leading counsel.
9 However, the PSNI is concerned if any credence has
10 been attached to what leading counsel described this
11 morning as perceptions that the RUC was unwilling to
12 assist Catholics generally, that the RUC and the
13 criminal justice system were reckless about the
14 investigation and prosecution of those who attacked
15 Catholics and that the system protected RUC officers.
16 The grave allegations of wrongdoing which appear to
17 frame these perceptions are firmly denied by the PSNI.
18 In due course, we will require further particulars of
19 the evidence, if any, which is relied on to ground those
20 perceptions.
21 It is difficult for any organisation or individual
22 to defend itself, or him or herself, against
23 a perception which may or may not have substance in
24 fact. The PSNI will rely on the Inquiry to separate
25 fact from baseless perception or rumour and to form its
126
1 conclusions around that which is established by the
2 evidence as having occurred.
3 We must also express some concern that, having set
4 himself the goal of making his overview as
5 uncontroversial as he could, leading counsel has also
6 been prepared to put forward certain conclusions,
7 however tentatively.
8 For example, he has said that it is arguable that
9 arising out of the investigation of the neglect of duty
10 complaint there is evidence of absence of due diligence.
11 All of the participants in this process may have
12 formed their own views of particular issues or incidents
13 from the documents they will have considered in
14 preparation for the Inquiry. However, I respectfully
15 suggest that it is unhelpful to the process and risks
16 unfairness to participants if conclusions are
17 articulated prematurely in public and if the content of
18 the evidence which the Inquiry is to hear is in any
19 sense pre-judged.
20 Rather, it is better to restrain any temptation to
21 advance such propositions, however definitively, until
22 after the evidence has unfolded.
23 The PSNI will not seek to defend or exculpate before
24 this Inquiry any officer whose acts or omissions are
25 properly and fairly deserving of censure, nor, for that
127
1 matter, will it seek to excuse organisational or systems
2 failures where they have demonstratively occurred.
3 At the same time, the Inquiry will be invited to
4 give due consideration to all those aspects of the
5 police response, of which there may be many which are
6 worthy of approval or credit.
7 For example, the Inquiry will no doubt wish to
8 consider how officers reacted to the aggression and
9 violence in Portadown on the morning of 27th April, and
10 whether they put themselves at great risk of physical
11 harm. The Inquiry may also wish to give consideration
12 to the rate at which evidence was gathered, arrests made
13 and charges led, and the industries and energy which was
14 brought to the investigations. Those are obviously
15 matters to come out in evidence and the Inquiry will
16 wish to form its own view.
17 It is expected, however, that any criticism of
18 police action will be balanced by consideration of what
19 is praiseworthy about their conduct.
20 The Inquiry may also wish to consider whether
21 obstacles were placed in the path of the RUC's various
22 investigations. It may also wish to consider whether
23 those obstacles were circumstantial, so that nothing
24 could be done about them, or whether they were
25 deliberately placed.
128
1 It may also need to consider the extent to which any
2 obstacles hampered police and whether they could have
3 been overcome. An assessment will have to be made about
4 whether any such obstacles contributed to the
5 difficulties faced by police in bringing to justice
6 those responsible for the killing of Mr Hamill.
7 Furthermore, the Inquiry and observers may wish to
8 acknowledge that much has changed in the world of
9 Northern Ireland policing since 1997. The Patten
10 reforms which gave rise to a new policing organisation
11 from November 2001 are chief amongst those developments.
12 The PSNI is an organisation which is not subjected
13 to the same terrorist threat which faced the RUC.
14 Moreover, its membership is now more representative of
15 the community it seeks to serve. Its resources can be
16 more readily focused on civil policing, and its systems
17 and procedures are altogether more sophisticated.
18 Furthermore, the principles of the Human Rights Act
19 1998 underpin the ethos and outlook of the PSNI.
20 Finally, members of the Inquiry, the PSNI embarks on
21 this process with a determination to ensure that the
22 full truth emerges at the end of it. It is concerned to
23 ensure through its legal team that a thorough and
24 detailed consideration of all of the relevant issues
25 takes place. It gives to the Inquiry a commitment to
129
1 full cooperation throughout proceedings and it stands
2 ready to accept any recommendations for future conduct
3 which may emerge from the Inquiry's considerations.
4 Thank you.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr Wolfe, would you accept this: that in
6 a society in which, over many generations, there has
7 been a sad sectarian divide, there are bound to be among
8 sections of both communities suspicions about the good
9 motives of people on the other side?
10 MR WOLFE: Having lived in Northern Ireland for 40 years,
11 I am fully aware of that, sir, yes.
12 Sorry,I didn't mean that to sound flippant. I hear
13 people laughing. It was intended to be a serious answer
14 to your question.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. Sometimes, if an allegation is made,
16 one would say, "Oh, that's unthinkable". Where, whether
17 from one side or another, in the type of situation you
18 have had in Northern Ireland there are criticisms made
19 of the good faith of the other side, one does not so
20 readily start off on the basis it is unthinkable and so
21 it must be dismissed, but that is a very far cry from
22 saying it has been shown, and one cannot make the
23 criticism unless it is shown.
24 Would you accept all of that?
25 MR WOLFE: I would accept all of that without hesitation.
130
1 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr Wolfe.
2 Miss Dinsmore, would you wish to address us at this
3 stage?
4 MS DINSMORE: I would appreciate a brief opportunity,
5 Mr Chairman and members of the Inquiry.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: It helps to speak into the microphones.
7 MS DINSMORE: Is that better?
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
9 Opening speech by MS DINSMORE
10 MS DINSMORE: As you are aware, I represent Eleanor and
11 Robert Atkinson and, as was opened by leading counsel on
12 behalf of the Inquiry, Mr Atkinson was a full-time
13 Reserve Constable in the RUC and one of the officers on
14 duty on the Land Rover crew at the centre of Portadown
15 when the disturbances arose; those disturbances which
16 resulted in the serious injury to the late
17 Robert Hamill, and to the untimely death of
18 Robert Hamill.
19 Leading Inquiry Counsel has outlined to you,
20 Mr Chairman, the serious allegations which have been
21 made against my clients and each of them. My clients
22 have consistently and do deny any wrongdoing arising out
23 of the events which occurred on the early morning of
24 27th April 1997 and thereafter.
25 Specifically, Mr Atkinson has maintained, and
131
1 continues to maintain, that he discharged his duty as
2 a serving officer to the best of his capacity in helping
3 to quell the said disturbance on that sad evening.
4 Additionally, his wife and himself have and do
5 continue to deny being involved in any conspiracy in any
6 way to interfere with or compromise the criminal
7 investigations which sought to bring persons to justice
8 in relation to those that were involved in that fatal
9 assault on the late Robert Hamill.
10 Accordingly, Mr Chairman, members of the Inquiry,
11 I and my clients, welcome the opportunity to participate
12 within this Inquiry and to seek to exonerate in relation
13 to the allegations that have been made.
14 Thank you very much, Mr Chairman.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr Adair?
16 Opening speech by MR ADAIR
17 MR ADAIR: Yes. Thank you, sir.
18 Members of the Panel, as you know, I represent,
19 amongst others, a number of the police officers who were
20 present at the scene of the assault upon Robert Hamill
21 together with a number of officers who were tasked with
22 or involved in the investigation into the death of
23 Robert Hamill.
24 Insofar as this Inquiry will hopefully hear all the
25 facts of this tragic incident as opposed to what has on
132
1 occasions been speculation, rumour or unsubstantiated
2 and inaccurate assertions by some, we entirely welcome
3 this Inquiry.
4 Those officers involved whom I represent also
5 welcome the fact that the Inquiry will hear all the
6 parties and have the opportunity of assessing the
7 credibility and accuracy of those assertions in the
8 light of the overall evidence. The Hamill family have
9 suffered a terrible loss in the death of Robert, and it
10 is just as much in their interests as those for whom
11 I appear that the truth emerges.
12 Sir, there may well -- and at the end of this
13 Inquiry, this Inquiry may find that there may have been
14 things done or not done which, in hindsight, and with
15 the benefit of a microscope, should have been done or it
16 certainly would have been preferable had been done, but
17 we hope that this Inquiry will dispel once and for all
18 what I accept is a genuinely held belief by the Hamill
19 family, that any act or omission on the part of any of
20 those for whom I represent was due to the fact that
21 Robert Hamill was a Catholic. If this Inquiry does
22 nothing else but to dispel that, and, as I repeat,
23 I accept entirely genuinely held belief, then it will
24 have fulfilled its function.
25 That's all I wish to say at this stage.
133
1 THE CHAIRMAN: Is there anyone else who wishes to address me
2 at this stage? Mr Emmerson?
3 MR EMMERSON: On behalf of the Public Prosecution Service
4 may we reserve the opportunity to address some opening
5 submissions when the appropriate stage arises --
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, of course.
7 MR EMMERSON: -- and simply at this stage assure you, sir,
8 and the members of the Panel of the director and the
9 service's full cooperation consistent with the Inquiry's
10 terms of reference?
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Does anyone else wish to address
12 us at this stage? Yes, Mr Underwood?
13 Opening speech re medical evidence by MR UNDERWOOD
14 MR UNDERWOOD: May I just say that those submissions we have
15 just heard are typical of the constructive, cogent and
16 helpful response we have had, not only from the people
17 from whom we have just heard, but also many others
18 involved in this Inquiry and I pay tribute to them.
19 Sir, we are at a point where I am ready to open the
20 medical evidence. The position is that thanks to the
21 economies of all my learned friends we are about a day
22 ahead of time already. Long may it continue!
23 I propose to spend the remainder of the day, with
24 your leave then, dealing with the medical position.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
134
1 MR UNDERWOOD: This will, I think, cause embarrassment to
2 all those experts to my far left who had no notice
3 whatever as to my intention to lead this material.
4 I hope they and you will forgive me if we deal with this
5 in a slightly uneven way.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: I don't hear any protests. Yes.
7 MR UNDERWOOD: As I said, there are broadly two questions
8 you may want to consider about the medical evidence:
9 namely, whether the assault was the cause of Mr Hamill's
10 death, and whether the medical findings reveal something
11 about the intensity and duration of the assault.
12 In respect of the first of those issues, you will
13 recall that Mr Hamill was assaulted on 27th April 1997
14 and died on 8th May without regaining consciousness. It
15 is fair to say that doctors at the Royal Victoria
16 Hospital where he died were not at all clear what was
17 the reason for the death. Two documents were produced
18 by the hospital contemporaneously. This is where
19 I think it will be helpful to look at some of those.
20 The first of those is at our page number [26166].
21 This is a discharge summary. If we can highlight the
22 middle paragraph, you will see that the position taken
23 was that this was a:
24 "Relatively minor head injury. Probably hypoxic at
25 the scene."
135
1 That means, of course, lack of oxygen:
2 "Sudden collapse, ? Septicaemia. Ultimate death."
3 So you can see, as of 8th May, there was the
4 possibility already being broadcast that there may have
5 been a contributory factor of the lack of oxygen and
6 conceivably, therefore, a question arising about lack of
7 first aid. The fact that the collapse had been sudden,
8 notwithstanding there had been a general comatose state,
9 and perhaps blood poisoning.
10 Then if we go to page [26101] the other document
11 that emerged is something called a final report. If we
12 go to the next page, [26102], the final comment -- can
13 I take the final paragraph of this, please? This is
14 from the consultant:
15 "This was an extremely unexpected outcome and it was
16 thought that he may have been suffering from a septicaemia
17 or perhaps a pulmonary embolus. The coroner has been
18 informed and a coroner's autopsy carried out, the result
19 of which is awaited. It is felt that this man sustained
20 a relatively minor head injury but was in all likelihood
21 hypoxic at the scene of the assault, resulting in his
22 extreme cerebral irritation and evidence of
23 a decerebrate-type brain stem injury."
24 As I say, it probably would be unfair to call it
25 speculative but a number of options were kept open at
136
1 that point.
2 The state pathologist, who, as I say, was
3 Professor Crane, consulted a neuropathologist,
4 a Dr Herron. They concluded that the cause of death was
5 severe axonal injury, which can only be detected after
6 death and which would have resulted directly from the
7 assault.
8 Professor Crane ruled out all of the causes that
9 were canvassed in the final report and in the discharge
10 summary that we have just looked at. My team felt this
11 issue was so important as to justify a further opinion,
12 so we commissioned a report from an independent expert,
13 Dr Lawler. He has reached a somewhat different
14 conclusion, as I suggested this morning, to that of
15 Professor Crane.
16 That is that Mr Hamill died from a rare complication
17 of a drug that was given to treat him because of his
18 head injury. That complication is, as I said this
19 morning, called neuroleptic malignant syndrome.
20 However, he also concludes that the death was the
21 result of the head injury. He, too, rules out all the
22 possible causes of death mentioned in the final report
23 and in the discharge summary we have just looked at.
24 Other experts have prepared reports relevant to this
25 issue, but which we have considered it unnecessary to
137
1 call. I should explain here what happens where my team
2 has taken the view that a witness statement or a report
3 which has been commissioned should not lead to somebody
4 being called.
5 What we have done is serve those reports on the
6 interested parties and relevant witnesses and told them
7 we are not proposing to call them and either that we are
8 proposing to read the statement or the report or that we
9 are not proposing to do anything with it and to invite
10 any representations.
11 We have had no representations in respect of what
12 follows. So what I am proposing to do, if I may, is to
13 take you to highlights of some of the reports which have
14 been commissioned on this subject and which we
15 respectfully suggest simply reinforce the conclusions
16 you get from Professor Crane and Dr Lawler. You will
17 hear from Professor Crane and Dr Lawler, but I hope this
18 will set some scene for you.
19 I start with a Mr Todd. We find his first report at
20 page [72617]. Going over to page [72618], if we could
21 highlight paragraphs 4 through to 8, please. Mr Todd is
22 a consultant neurosurgeon and spinal surgeon. He was
23 asked to consider the pathology outcome. We see at
24 paragraph 4:
25 "4. Histological examination of the brain showed no
138
1 evidence of hypoxic ischaemic damage in neuronal
2 structures that would be subject to such damage."
3 So he is ruling out hypoxia and ischaemic changes
4 which are essentially the same thing resulting from lack
5 of oxygen supply to the brain:
6 "5. Histological examination of the brain
7 demonstrated a diffuse axonal injury (a shearing injury
8 to white matter tracts) widely distributed throughout
9 the brain; in some areas that damage was thought by
10 Professor Crane to be extensive.
11 "6. Such a diffuse axonal injury, widespread and in
12 parts extensive, would typically be associated with high
13 velocity road traffic accidents where there are severe
14 and abrupt acceleration/deceleration forces.
15 "7. Such a pattern of injury does not usually
16 follow a simple assault where a punch leads to the
17 patient being knocked out briefly.
18 "8. In my opinion, Mr Hamill's head/brain was
19 subjected to such significant forces that it caused the
20 sort of severe axonal injury that is normally associated
21 with high velocity road traffic accidents."
22 Now I, of course, said there is disagreement between
23 these very eminent experts about whether the actual
24 cause of death was axonal injury or neuroleptic
25 malignant syndrome. I think it is fair to say everybody
139
1 accepts there was some axonal injury. The question is
2 whether it was concentrated in such a place as to cause
3 the death. So I hope the disagreement between the
4 experts does not take away from the conclusion that
5 Mr Todd reaches there.
6 If we go to page --
7 THE CHAIRMAN: I suppose there could have been two causes of
8 death; the axonal injury and the other injury?
9 MR UNDERWOOD: Quite so, yes.
10 Can I next go to another report from Mr Todd at
11 page [72643], dated 8th March 2006? If we go over the
12 page, please, to page [72644], the third paragraph which
13 starts:
14 "In 1992 ..."
15 What Mr Todd is doing is explaining some of the
16 scientific papers about axonal injury. He is
17 explaining:
18 "In 1992, Graham et al published 15 cases of fatal
19 head injury caused by an assault where there was
20 neuropathological evidence of diffuse axonal injury. In
21 10 of the 15 patients the diffuse axonal injury was
22 severe (Grade 3). In some cases, the assault was
23 a punch or punches, in other cases, there were further
24 injuries to the head, either an assault with a heavy
25 object or kicking, in some cases, the victim fell
140
1 striking his head on the ground. Graham et al make the
2 point that in most of their cases full details of the
3 nature of the assault were not available."
4 That is something that one sees running throughout
5 these reports; that both the malignant syndrome and the
6 axonal injury were relatively unreported in the
7 scientific papers and I think it will become clear,
8 particularly when we see Dr Lawler and Professor Crane,
9 that these are matters upon which the scientific
10 community has yet to form crystallised opinions.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Would it be right to read the paragraph you
12 have highlighted for us, that where the nature of the
13 attack or the nature of the violence was known, it was
14 severe?
15 MR UNDERWOOD: Yes.
16 Can I go back to the page and pick out
17 a paragraph two paragraphs further on, which starts:
18 "There are a number of reports ..."
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
20 MR UNDERWOOD: Thank you very much:
21 "There are a number of reports of axonal injury
22 following assault. We have already considered the 15
23 patients reviewed by Graham et al. Grade 2 diffuse
24 axonal injury has been identified in a man who died thirteen
25 days after an assault. The paper contains the witness
141
1 evidence that 'the victim was attacked while lying on
2 the ground. The perpetrator stomped and kicked the
3 victim and also struck the victim's head with a piece of
4 cement'. This suggests that severe injury is required
5 to cause a grade 2 diffuse axonal injury following
6 assault."
7 THE CHAIRMAN: This was a grade 2 injury, was it?
8 MR UNDERWOOD: There is some debate about that I'm afraid,
9 not helped by the fact that the differentiation between
10 the grades has changed over the years from 1997 to date.
11 What I am doing is giving you a run of reports here.
12 Dr Todd produced those two. That was then followed by
13 a further report which is from a neuropathologist
14 commissioned by the Inquiry from Dr Reid, which I'm
15 about to come to. Then I will take you to a further
16 comment from Dr Todd resulting from all that, if I may.
17 Going to Dr Reid, her report starts at page [72526],
18 but if I can take you through to [72532], please, and
19 I should say that Dr Reid obtained the brain sections
20 that were taken at the autopsy and which were examined
21 by Professor Crane's team with one conclusion, and the
22 purpose of commissioning this report was to have
23 an independent analysis of the subject.
24 If I can pick it up in the third paragraph, please:
25 "In this case there is no description of
142
1 a macroscopic infarct of any type and no infarcts are
2 present in the sections. There is some
3 hypoxaemic/ischaemic neuronal damage, that is pink
4 neurones are seen and if this is graded as in the
5 reference from Graham et al it is diffuse and mild.
6 This change can occur within an hour of
7 hypoxic/ischaemic damage. It can also be due to other
8 insults than the original episode when he was assaulted.
9 Hypothermia itself can also cause hypoxic/ischaemic
10 neuronal damage."
11 There what Dr Reid is doing is independently from
12 the source material saying this is not oxygen
13 starvation.
14 Then, if we can go over the page, please, to
15 page [72533] the paragraph that starts:
16 "From the information and slides available", and
17 goes down to the bottom of (d), please: her conclusions
18 are these:
19 " From the information and slides available:
20 "(a). I do not agree that there is severe traumatic
21 diffuse axonal injury in this case. The grade of DAI",
22 that's diffuse axonal injury, "is II with scattered white
23 matter damage.
24 "(b). The lesions seen histologically showing
25 a macrophage response with little in the way of ongoing
143
1 damage are not, in my opinion, enough to cause his sudden
2 death. The probability of his death through Neuroleptic
3 Malignant Syndrome is one which I would agree with.
4 ."(c). The white matter damage may have been made
5 worse by hypoxaemia/ischaemia, but these lesions in the
6 white matter are not enlarging with more recent changes
7 in the surrounding white matter.
8 "(d). There is hypoxaemic/ischaemic neuronal change,
9 which is diffuse but mild as it involves several gyri
10 in several slides, but there are no cerebral infarcts
11 nor evidence of laminar necrosis in the cortex."
12 Again, we will have the advantage of two very
13 eminent pathologists who can explain that, but, from my
14 understanding of it, you would get laminar necrosis if
15 there is hypoxic damage:
16 "I therefore consider the hypoxaemic/ischaemic
17 changes not to have been a significant effect in this
18 case, but they did have an effect in worsening his
19 initial brain insult in the order of less of than one
20 third."
21 So that's then the position of Dr Reid in respect of
22 both the questions of the hypoxia and also whether the
23 severity of the axonal injury was sufficient in itself
24 to be the cause of death.
25 Then, finally in this run of evidence, if I can go
144
1 to what Mr Todd has said in a third opinion, we find
2 that at page [72811]. The report of 18th July 2006, in
3 which he has had a look at a medical report of
4 Dr Lawler, which we will see, and that report of Dr Reid
5 we have just looked at.
6 If I can go over the page to [72812], can
7 I highlight the top of the page down to "Review of
8 medical report". Thank you very much:
9 "I do not consider myself an expert in the diagnosis
10 of the neuroleptic malignant syndrome. My general
11 understanding is that Dr Lawler's list of major findings
12 in the neuroleptic malignant syndrome are correct.
13 "Dr Lawler also comments that he would be unable to
14 distinguish the neurological features that were
15 a consequence of neuroleptic malignant syndrome and
16 those that were attributable to the primary brain
17 injury. I agree with that. We know that Mr Hamill had
18 a grade 3 diffuse axonal injury which involved the brain
19 stem. Such brain stem damage could be associated with
20 marked fever (probable hypothalamic damage) with
21 autonomic problems (brain stem injury) and rigidity (for
22 example, the arching of the back noted on 01.05.97)."
23 Jumping a paragraph:
24 "However, what I can say with complete confidence is
25 that the use of chlorpromazine in a head-injured patient
145
1 who is agitated and restless is entirely reasonable.
2 The neurosurgeons cannot be faulted for using
3 chlorpromazine under these circumstances, and of course
4 it will be recognized that the development of the
5 neuroleptic malignant syndrome is rare."
6 Going over the page, we get a final conclusion on
7 this, [72813]. Can we highlight the entire paragraph,
8 please? Thank you:
9 "In my report I accepted Professor Crane's view that
10 Mr Hamill suffered a severe grade 3 diffuse axonal
11 injury. Dr Reid believes that the diffuse axonal injury
12 was less severe, grade 2. This weakens my suggestion
13 that Mr Hamill suffered a prolonged and violent assault
14 rather than a single blow to the head and it supports my
15 view that it is not beyond reasonable doubt that he
16 suffered a less severe primary injury causing grade 2
17 axonal injury.
18 "I remain of the view that Mr Hamill's head injury
19 was at a level of violence considerably greater than the
20 average 'Saturday night punch-up'. As you will have
21 noted from my supplementary report, it is simply not
22 possible to be certain as to what level of head injury
23 Mr Hamill suffered even if there was a grade 3 diffuse
24 axonal injury, and still less when the diffuse axonal
25 injury is not considered to be grade 2."
146
1 What I apprehend you can take from that is that the
2 original assumption in the first report of Dr Todd
3 simply assumed the axonal injury was as severe as set
4 out in the original reports, but that, whether it is
5 grade 2 or grade 3, this was a severe assault, and that
6 the distinction between grade 2 and grade 3 is not going
7 to help in determining the severity of the assault,
8 because too little is known.
9 The other question then is whether the medical
10 evidence can throw any light on the nature and period of
11 the assault. I have largely covered that ground with
12 the reports we have just looked at, but I am going to
13 call two nurses, Maureen Hagan and Maureen Millar and
14 a doctor, Dr Low, all of whom worked at the
15 Craigavon Area Hospital.
16 They saw Mr Hamill when he was admitted and they
17 made notes. They are likely to be in the best position
18 to give you evidence of the injuries that Mr Hamill
19 presented with immediately on admission to hospital.
20 There are a number of statements that I want to draw
21 your attention to from other doctors before I call any
22 of those witnesses, whose evidence I hope is
23 uncontroversial, and, therefore, I'm able to read.
24 The first of those is Dr Lavery. We find his
25 statement at page [80633]. (Pause).
147
1 I have just been told there is a medical problem on
2 the part of somebody in the Inquiry and some timetabling
3 discussion may be valuable. I am being invited by some
4 of my team to ask you to rise so that can be sorted out.
5 May I just take a moment to take some instructions
6 to see whether it is worth rising and then coming back?
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, of course.
8 MR UNDERWOOD: From what I am hearing, I think I will invite
9 you to rise for the day. There needs to be some
10 discussion about what time we can sit in the morning
11 because of medical difficulty.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: I see.
13 MR UNDERWOOD: As I have said, sir, we are way ahead of
14 time. I am hoping there will be no loss at all from
15 this. Perhaps I can invite everybody to stay behind, as
16 it were, for another ten minutes or so and we can report
17 to everybody the outcome of the discussions?
18 THE CHAIRMAN: The hope is we shall hear the two consultants
19 tomorrow, is it?
20 MR UNDERWOOD: It would be good if we can get them. To be
21 perfectly frank -- and this is entirely my fault --
22 I scheduled the consultants for Thursday in the
23 expectation that the openings would take longer, and in
24 the desire not to have consultants kicking their heels
25 in this elegant building when they could be doing
148
1 something far less important. So what I have done is
2 make some enquiries to see whether we can get some of
3 the nurses here tomorrow, if possible, but in any event,
4 sir, we will do what we can.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: We will await events.
6 Tomorrow at 10.30, unless what you tell us conflicts
7 with that.
8 MR UNDERWOOD: Quite so.
9 (3.55 pm)
10 (The hearing adjourned until 10.30 tomorrow morning)
11
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15
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18
19
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25
149
1 I N D E X
2
3
Opening speech by MR UNDERWOOD ................... 19
4
Opening speech by MR MCGRORY ..................... 100
5
Opening speech by MR WOLFE ....................... 122
6
Opening speech by MS DINSMORE .................... 131
7
Opening speech by MR ADAIR ....................... 132
8
Opening speech re medical evidence ............... 134
9 by MR UNDERWOOD
10
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15
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18
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150
