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Hearing: 13th May 2009, day 48
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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 Wednesday, 13th May 2009
commencing at 10.30 am
Day 48
1 Wednesday, 13th May 2009
2 (10.30 am)
3 (Proceedings delayed)
4 (10.45 am)
5 MR UNDERWOOD: Good morning. I am sorry for the slight
6 delay.
7 Lawrence Marshall, please.
8 MR LAWRENCE BRIAN MARSHALL (sworn)
9 Questions from MR UNDERWOOD
10 MR UNDERWOOD: Good morning, Mr Marshall.
11 A. Morning.
12 Q. My name is Underwood. I am Counsel for the Inquiry.
13 I have some questions for you. When I have finished, it
14 may be there will be some supplemental questions from
15 others.
16 What are your full names, please?
17 A. Lawrence Brian Marshall.
18 Q. I think you have signed two statements for the Inquiry.
19 Can I take you first to page [80761] and ask you to look
20 at the screen while we scroll through the seven pages of
21 that document?
22 A. Yes, I have it here.
23 Q. We will see all seven pages of it. Is that your witness
24 statement of 12th March 2008?
25 A. It is, yes.
1
1 Q. Before I ask you whether it is true, can I just invite
2 you to look at paragraph 7, which is on page [80762]?
3 There you say:
4 "In the Robert Hamill case, my recollection is that
5 I dealt primarily with the RUC. The Submission Forms
6 which appear at pages numbers 26746 to 26787 tell me
7 that the investigating officer on the case and the
8 person I therefore would have dealt with was
9 Detective Inspector Michael Irwin."
10 I just want to put you right there. 26746 onwards
11 deal with submission forms for a later allegation
12 against Mr Atkinson. It is our fault for putting those
13 numbers in. Before I get you to swear to the truth of
14 this, can I just invite you to look at some other forms?
15 If we look at page [08176], this is a HOLMES version
16 rather than the one you would have seen. This is
17 a Form A we have in relation to the event.
18 Is that the document you are talking about as the
19 Form A part of the submission forms in your paragraph?
20 A. Well, as you say, this is not one of our submission
21 forms, but it certainly relates to the same incident,
22 same people.
23 Q. Thank you. While we are on this, if I just take you
24 over the page to [08177], and if I just read the text at
25 the top there to you:
2
1 "At date and time stated IPs [the injured persons] were
2 walking along Thomas Street and when reached
3 Market Street they were set upon by a number of persons
4 (estimated 10 to 20 persons in vicinity and not know
5 how many involved in attack). Both persons were thumped
6 and kicked and Robert Hamill was jumped upon (on head)
7 by at least three persons. As a result, he remains
8 seriously ill in the RVH hospital. There were no known
9 original suspects and no immediate arrests were made.
10 A number of persons were identified in the area that had
11 'bleeding' injuries at the time of the incident and are
12 believed to have been involved in the assaults."
13 As you said in your statement, that's signed off by
14 Michael Irwin.
15 Is that the information you had then about the
16 incident?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. If we just look -- I don't want to take you through the
19 entirety of the submission forms. I just want you to
20 look at samples of them.
21 If we look at page [08205], this is, in fact, headed
22 Form D, FSANI D. Again, it is the HOLMES version. This
23 is an injured party, Robert Hamill. Then we see down --
24 it is clothing. Its removal was on 10th May 1997 at
25 7.30. Going down:
3
1 "Give information on the relevance of the items
2 submitted to the alleged incident.
3 "Clothing and footwear possibly worn by
4 Allister Hanvey at the scene of the assault of Hamill
5 and D."
6 So this is, on the face of it, a version of the form
7 that was submitted to you covering, as it were, the
8 clothing seized from Mr Hanvey, who we know was
9 a suspect. Should that have been a Form D?
10 A. Yes, it probably should. If this clothing and footwear
11 were not taken from Mr Hanvey but were, for example,
12 seized from his house, then Form D would be appropriate.
13 Q. I see. Then if we look at page [08178], this is what's
14 headed "FSANI C", so Form C, injured party form. About
15 halfway down:
16 "Incident: serious assault
17 "Date: 27.4.97."
18 It gives the location.
19 "Name: Robert Hamill."
20 It goes over the page. We need not look at it. Is
21 this the Form C that related to Mr Hamill then?
22 A. This would appear to be a Form C relating to a hair
23 combing taken from Mr Hamill.
24 Q. For DNA purposes presumably?
25 A. Hair combings were routinely taken. It may be taken to
4
1 provide a reference sample of hair for comparison.
2 Q. I see.
3 A. It wouldn't really be for DNA purposes.
4 Q. Thank you. Subject to the misdirection that's our fault
5 about page numbers of the submission forms then, is the
6 content of the statement that I have shown you true?
7 A. Yes, it is.
8 Q. Thank you. Can I take you to page [81825] and ask you
9 to keep your eyes on the screen while we scroll fairly
10 briefly through the six pages of this?
11 Is this the second witness statement you have signed
12 for us?
13 A. It is, yes.
14 Q. Are the contents of this true?
15 A. They are, yes.
16 Q. Thank you very much. I have some additional questions
17 to ask you.
18 Dealing in general with the submission forms that
19 came to you in 1997 in relation to the GBH that turned
20 into a murder, are you content that those forms
21 adequately conveyed all the information that you needed?
22 A. I think they did, yes.
23 Q. We know that, of course, because we have just looked at
24 the Form A, it gave you information about the incident
25 at the time that it was a GBH. Of course, very shortly
5
1 after those forms were submitted, Mr Hamill tragically
2 died.
3 Would you have expected some sort of update in the
4 information?
5 A. I am not quite sure what you mean by "update".
6 Q. Would you have expected any sort of information which
7 either gave you news of the death or perhaps gave you
8 more information about the original incident?
9 A. I would expect to hear that the case, as you had said,
10 turned from GBH to murder. As to whether I would expect
11 more information about the incident, that would depend
12 really on whether there had been any developments in the
13 case.
14 Q. So it was conceivable, was it, that if the police
15 discovered more about, for example, other people
16 bleeding at the scene, or not bleeding at the scene, or
17 more people involved, that you would be told about that?
18 A. I would hope to be told about that, yes.
19 Q. Were you, in fact?
20 A. I don't think so. I think most of the information
21 I received came in on the submission forms.
22 Q. We know you acted very quickly indeed in determining
23 that a spot of blood on Mr Hamill's jeans belonged to
24 one of the suspects, Mr Bridgett, and that you, in fact,
25 sent that off on 10th May for DNA testing, and you were
6
1 able, on 12th May, to talk to a police officer and tell
2 him the results. 10th May apparently was a Saturday.
3 Did you regularly work on Saturdays?
4 A. We work an on-call system so there are people to do
5 emergency work every day of the year.
6 Q. This was regarded as an emergency then, was it?
7 A. It was regarded as an emergency, yes.
8 Q. Can we infer from that that by then you would have known
9 it was a murder?
10 A. I think so, yes.
11 Q. We know that the submission forms didn't reach the FSANI
12 until 7th May 1997. We know, of course, the incident
13 took place in the early hours of 27th April 1997. Can
14 you help us with whether, in the period between
15 27th April and 7th May, there was any deterioration of
16 anything you had to test that might have affected the
17 outcome?
18 A. I wouldn't have thought so, no. Bloodstains, once they
19 are dried, are preserved pretty well.
20 Q. Are you conscious that anything had been washed or
21 otherwise tampered with in a way that prevented you from
22 getting proper results?
23 A. I don't think so.
24 Q. Okay. If we look at page [72304], is this your diagram
25 of Mr Hamill's jeans, or is this one that came to you?
7
1 A. That is one which came to me, although I have annotated
2 it.
3 Q. So the writing is yours, is it?
4 A. No, but there is certainly my writing on the picture of
5 the front of the left leg of the trousers. It says,
6 "Sample 4, 07.03.03". That is my writing. The other
7 writing would be from whichever assistant or member of
8 staff made the original diagram.
9 Q. I see. If we look at what is, to us, the left leg on
10 the front, the left-hand side, as it were, of the front
11 diagram of the jeans, there is a red spot marked here
12 and it is Sample 3 at the bottom?
13 A. Uh-huh.
14 Q. Is that the one that tested for a positive for
15 Mr Bridgett's DNA?
16 A. I think so, but without actually, you know, going
17 through all the notes, I can't be absolutely certain,
18 but I think so.
19 Q. Very well. Looking on the other leg of that diagram, i.e.
20 the front, there seems to be a red spot at the very
21 right-hand side at the bottom. Is that correct?
22 A. It is, yes.
23 Q. Am I right in saying that doesn't seem to have been
24 sampled?
25 A. It doesn't appear to have been sampled, no.
8
1 Q. Looking at the other diagram, there appears to be a red
2 spot on the right-hand side of the picture, which,
3 again, appears not to have been sampled.
4 Would you agree with that?
5 A. I would -- yes, I would agree with that, although that
6 may be an extension of the spot on the other diagram, if
7 you like.
8 Q. That doesn't seem very likely, though, does it?
9 A. Well, the positions on the diagrams are slightly
10 different, but again, without going back, I can't say
11 whether that is one spot or two.
12 THE CHAIRMAN: It is higher up the leg, isn't it?
13 A. It is, yes.
14 MR UNDERWOOD: Do you happen to know where these jeans are
15 now?
16 A. I don't, no.
17 Q. While we still have this up, I want to ask you about the
18 situation as at 12th May 1997. We know that you treated
19 this as an urgent matter that you had managed to submit
20 on a Saturday, 10th May, for DNA testing and were able
21 by the 12th to tell officers that that spot we have just
22 looked at was Mr Bridgett's.
23 Was there any further discussion about testing the
24 other spots here that we see that remain untested and
25 still remain untested?
9
1 A. No.
2 Q. Would you have expected the police to have asked to you
3 do more at that stage?
4 A. I'm not sure that the police would have been aware of
5 the precise location of the spots of blood on the jeans,
6 because, I mean, they hadn't examined them in the way
7 that they were examined in the laboratory.
8 Q. What we are attempting to do, as you understand, is get
9 to the truth of what happened and, if there were any
10 flaws in the system so things fell through the middle,
11 try to identify what those flaws were.
12 The position is this, is it: the submissions are
13 made to you over the name of Mr Irwin, who, of course,
14 wouldn't have examined things scientifically himself.
15 You either examine yourself or arrange for examination
16 by others of the DNA that might be on the materials?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. You come up with a match with a suspect. Now, what
19 happens then? How do the police get to know there might
20 be more that might link to a suspect or to a different
21 suspect?
22 A. Really, they don't. This is largely left as a matter
23 for my judgment as to which samples to take, which areas
24 to sample.
25 Q. Sorry, I need to take that in stages. I appreciate from
10
1 your statements that you say that when you originally
2 decide what to test, you, of course, have to discern
3 which samples to take and analyse.
4 What I am asking you now is, once a match has been
5 made to somebody who is a suspect, was there any scope
6 in 1997 for a debate about doing more testing?
7 A. Yes, there would have been if there -- sorry. Excuse
8 me. Had there been case conferences, as there are now,
9 the matter would be dealt with in a bit more depth and
10 we would say perhaps, "We will try some other stains or
11 look at this or look at that".
12 Q. If the Panel were considering a recommendation about
13 this, they would bear in mind, would they, that now
14 something different might have occurred?
15 A. Case conferences in serious cases are much more frequent
16 now than they were in 1997, yes.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Who decides whether a case conference is
18 needed?
19 A. Either we can ask the police or they can ask us. It is
20 really either party to an investigation, yes.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: I suppose it depends to an extent on what the
22 police know and what you know. That is what it comes
23 to?
24 A. Yes.
25 MR UNDERWOOD: We know that in practical terms no other
11
1 useful evidence emerged from the DNA analysis. Is that
2 right.
3 A. That's right, yes.
4 Q. And that in due course, under the pressure of time you
5 have told us about in your second statement, you
6 produced a report?
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. Following that, there was a conversation between you and
9 somebody from the DPP. I want to take you to that now.
10 Can we look at page [18040], please? This is a file
11 note made by Mr Davison of the DPP, dated
12 17th November 1997. It says:
13 "I spoke by phone with Lawrence Marshall this
14 morning at around 11.30 am. He informed me as follows:
15 "A small spot of blood (identified as Bridgett's
16 blood) was found on Hamill's trouser leg 1 or 2
17 inches above the bottom of the hem. It was a round spot
18 no bigger than a one pence coin. There was one other
19 spot of blood near to this spot but it was not tested.
20 "The blood on the left trouser leg did not come from
21 Bridgett and was smeared and thus different from
22 Bridgett's spot.
23 "The fact that the blood was not in an elongated
24 shape means that there is nothing to indicate what
25 direction the blood came from.
12
1 "Mr Marshall was reluctant to offer any
2 interpretation as to how the blood got there, but said
3 it was consistent with Hamill lying on the ground and
4 a drop of Bridgett's blood falling as he stood over
5 Hamill."
6 Then he goes on to discuss what he did with that.
7 I want to ask you a bit about this. First of all,
8 how common was it in 1997 for you to have discussions
9 with anyone from the DPP's office?
10 A. It was unusual. It didn't happen very often.
11 Q. Can you give us any sort of idea? Once a month, once
12 a year?
13 A. Maybe a couple of times a year.
14 Q. Presumably you never initiated the contact with the DPP.
15 It was the other way round?
16 A. It was always them calling us, yes.
17 Q. Was this the sort of thing they tended to do, ring you
18 up and asked you for some sort of elaboration?
19 A. It was normally for elaboration or clarification of
20 something in a statement.
21 Q. Now, of course, here you are being asked about something
22 quite new, which was the effect, as it were, of
23 a spatter pattern rather than the DNA itself. It says
24 that you were reluctant to offer any interpretation how
25 the blood spot got there.
13
1 Did you regard yourself as an expert in spatter?
2 A. At that time, I had no formal training in what we now
3 call blood pattern analysis. I had quite a degree of
4 experience of it and, since then, we have all received
5 formal training.
6 Q. I want to ask you two quite separate things arising out
7 of that then. The first is about the way in which the
8 conversation went and might have gone, and the other is
9 what expertise you can now offer us.
10 Can I deal with the second one first? All we have,
11 because at the moment we can't locate the jeans, is the
12 diagram we just looked at and this note of it being
13 a small spot of blood, a round spot, no bigger than
14 a one pence coin.
15 With what you know now about that, can you offer us
16 an opinion on how the blood might have got there?
17 A. No. There is insufficient blood on the bottom of the
18 jeans and it is from several different sources. There
19 is insufficient, really, to form an opinion.
20 Q. Would your opinion differ if you were able to look at
21 the jeans and see that other spots of blood that have
22 not yet been tested turn out to be Mr Bridgett's blood?
23 A. As I recall, this conversation was asking -- the subtext
24 was: "Is there any evidence of kicking or anything like
25 that?" I didn't see any evidence of that.
14
1 My recollection of the jeans in the diagram, I would
2 be very reluctant to make any interpretation. There is
3 no strong pattern on them, if you like.
4 Q. No. When we looked a couple of minutes ago at the
5 diagrams of the jeans, we identified what appear to be
6 a couple of other blood spots at the bottom.
7 Now, if those turned out to be Mr Bridgett's blood,
8 if they did -- and we have no idea whether they are --
9 would that enable you or someone else to reach something
10 more of a positive conclusion?
11 A. I would be very reluctant to draw any conclusion from
12 the pattern of blood on those jeans, even if I knew the
13 source of all the bloodstains on them.
14 Q. Why is that?
15 A. There is just not enough information, you know, in the
16 amount of blood on the jeans to draw any conclusion.
17 You have to have a certain degree of spatter and certain
18 characteristics before you can draw a conclusion.
19 Q. Let me just test what sort of conclusion we are talking
20 about here. So if, for example, you had Mr Bridgett
21 saying he was never any closer than ten feet --
22 A. Uh-huh.
23 Q. -- would you have been able to reach a conclusion that
24 that was false?
25 A. Given these jeans, yes, I would say that was false.
15
1 Q. So what sort of conclusion are you talking about that
2 you couldn't reach?
3 A. I couldn't reach a conclusion as to the mechanism by
4 which those spots of blood arrived on the bottom --
5 excuse me -- the bottom of the jeans.
6 Q. Again, to tease that out, what possibilities are there
7 that you couldn't distinguish between?
8 A. I couldn't distinguish between an allegation that
9 Robert Hamill had kicked Stacey Bridgett, for example,
10 or that the blood came, as I have said in this letter,
11 as a drop from Stacey Bridgett on to Mr Hamill when he
12 was on the ground, or -- those are the two main
13 suggestions, I suppose.
14 Q. Right. Did you have any discussion of that sort with
15 Mr Davison or with anybody else?
16 A. The only time I had any discussion with Mr Davison is
17 this telephone call we have minuted here.
18 Q. Were you told, for example, that Bridgett denied being
19 anywhere near Mr Hamill?
20 A. I can't recall that.
21 Q. Were you told that Mr Bridgett denied kicking or being
22 kicked by Mr Hamill?
23 A. I can't recall the detail of the conversation. I can
24 just recall the gist of it.
25 Q. What I would like you to help with, if you could, is
16
1 this: if you had had the sort of discussion we have just
2 had with Mr Davison, would you be able to say, "Of
3 course he was nearer than that. Of course he must be
4 lying if he says he is ten feet away"?
5 A. Had that been put to me by Mr Davison, yes, I would have
6 said that.
7 Q. We have, I am afraid, with some gruesomeness, got
8 details of more bloodstains. I want to show you some of
9 them.
10 Page [72303] to start with. This is Mr Hamill's
11 jacket. Do I take it from your earlier answer that
12 where we have annotations which show lifts 07.03.03 that
13 that's your writing?
14 A. That's my writing, yes.
15 Q. Again, to cut through, if we look at the back of the
16 jacket, there is staining around the neck and collar
17 area, which you discovered to be Mr Hamill's, I think.
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Then you have staining below that, to our right, which
20 turned out to be unknown A. Is that right?
21 A. As I recall, yes.
22 Q. The words "heavy staining" apply to both of those. Is
23 that correct?
24 A. Yes, they are both marked "heavy staining".
25 Q. You also discovered, I think, that the blood that was
17
1 sampled from the roadway also turned out to be
2 unknown A?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Unknown A's blood is fairly well-distributed because it
5 is on Maureen McCoy's clothes and elsewhere on
6 Mr Hamill's, I think. Is that correct?
7 A. I think so, yes.
8 Q. I don't mean this critically, but initially when you
9 tested Mr Hamill's jacket, you assumed, I think, that
10 the staining on the collar we have just seen and the
11 staining on the back was all Mr Hamill's blood. Is that
12 right?
13 A. I understood that Mr Hamill had head injuries, and when
14 I looked at the blood on this jacket, I thought that was
15 more likely than not to come from Mr Hamill.
16 Q. I appreciate your evidence is you had to distinguish
17 which blood to sample and which to leave as it was?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. Again, I am not being critical of your decision on that.
20 The purpose of this is to ask you this: is there still
21 blood which has been unsampled and which might show
22 other DNA?
23 A. Looking at this diagram, there are areas of
24 bloodstaining marked on the diagram which haven't been
25 sampled, yes.
18
1 Q. Just to be entirely clear about this -- and we will ask
2 Miss Quinn about it -- eventually there was a thorough
3 analysis by the PSNI, together with your organisation,
4 to decide which further samples to take?
5 A. Yes. We had conferences in 2002 on.
6 Q. So insofar as there is any blood or any staining at all
7 left unsampled, that's as a result of conscious
8 decisions taken after careful consideration. Is that
9 correct?
10 A. Yes. You have to be selective.
11 MR UNDERWOOD: Yes. I have no further questions. Thank you
12 very much, Mr Marshall.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Can you just help us about this, Mr Marshall?
14 You get some spots of blood which are circular and
15 you get other drops of blood or bloodstains which are
16 pear-shaped, do you not?
17 A. That's right, yes.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Does the shape of the mark tell you anything
19 about how the blood got there?
20 A. It tells you the direction from which it was projected
21 onto whatever surface you are looking at and you can
22 work out the angle that it struck the surface.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: Because the pear-shaped one suggests that the
24 blood has got onto whatever is has got onto and then run
25 down, doesn't it?
19
1 A. Well, it suggests that the droplet of blood has struck
2 the surface obliquely rather than dropping straight down
3 on to it.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: Quite so. So the circular blood spot you
5 found on the jeans and analysed, that seems to have --
6 what would you say? How did it get there in any event?
7 Did it go down onto it vertically?
8 A. Yes, it struck it vertically. I can't say what the
9 position of the trouser leg was at the time, but,
10 I mean, certainly entirely consistent with a drop just
11 falling straight down onto the trouser leg if Mr Hamill
12 was lying down at that time.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: So perpendicularly to the surface --
14 A. Yes.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: -- and entirely consistent with dropping
16 straight down?
17 A. Yes.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Is that perhaps a more likely explanation
19 than striking it perpendicularly when the trouser is at
20 some other angle?
21 A. I would have thought so, yes.
22 REV. BARONESS KATHLEEN RICHARDSON: Can I ask about that as
23 well?
24 Can you determine from the amount of blood how far
25 away the drop would have fallen to get to the jeans?
20
1 A. No.
2 REV. BARONESS KATHLEEN RICHARDSON: You can't do that?
3 A. No.
4 REV. BARONESS KATHLEEN RICHARDSON: Okay.
5 THE CHAIRMAN: May I just read my note to you to be sure
6 I have it accurately:
7 "The round spot, it is consistent with striking
8 perpendicularly and more probably falling vertically on
9 onto the surface."
10 A. I think that's fair, yes.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
12 MR WOLFE: I have no questions.
13 MR O'HARE: No questions.
14 Questions from MR McKENNA
15 MR McKENNA: Just one or two matters. My name is McKenna
16 and I want to ask you one or two questions on behalf of
17 the Hamill family.
18 First of all, in answer to Mr Underwood
19 a few minutes ago, he had asked you about the
20 possibility of analysing all the blood spots that were
21 found on the jeans. I think the response you gave was
22 that you had to be selective. I want to ask you to
23 expand on that a little bit.
24 What do you mean by "selective"?
25 A. When I look at a bloodstained garment, I look at the
21
1 pattern of bloodstaining and form a conclusion as to
2 whether a particular number of stains all came from --
3 most probably came from one source or one impact or
4 whatever. Then I would sample those and I would try to
5 sample the various patterns on the garment.
6 We have to be selective because it simply comes down
7 inevitably to the fact that we can't do everything.
8 Q. Well, if I could put this proposition to you: if you had
9 been made aware, for instance, that an injured party was
10 the subject of an assault by a number of individuals,
11 one or more of whom themselves could have been involved
12 in a fight and been injured, would that have caused you
13 to expand your selection?
14 A. Had I been aware there was a probability that some of
15 the assailants had been injured prior to the assault on
16 Robert Hamill, yes, that would have influenced my
17 thinking.
18 Q. But you weren't aware of that at the time. Is that what
19 you are telling us?
20 A. I wasn't aware that the assailants were injured and
21 possibly bleeding at the time of the assault.
22 Q. Now, if I could turn then, Mr Marshall, please, to your
23 statement, which is at [80761]. Could we highlight
24 paragraph 3 first? There is something I would ask you
25 to help clarify. If you read about three lines down you
22
1 will see:
2 "If the detectives investigating a case wished to
3 submit material to [the Forensic Service], it went firstly
4 to the Submissions Unit and the police personnel
5 employed there would act as a filter and decide which
6 material would be submitted and which would not."
7 How did that process work and how did those
8 personnel make that decision?
9 A. In 1997, the Submissions Unit was attached to the
10 laboratory. So they were in the same building as
11 ourselves. They made their decisions -- I am conscious
12 I am speaking here now for other people -- based on what
13 they wished to establish to advance an investigation.
14 There may be some issues which are irrelevant and,
15 although material has been seized, that wouldn't be
16 submitted. It was also done in consultation with
17 ourselves. As I say, we were all in the same building
18 at that time.
19 Q. So was the sequence of events a police officer,
20 a detective, investigating an offence gathers material
21 and it is bagged and labelled and it is brought then to
22 the Submissions Unit in the Forensic Service, which is
23 actually a police unit?
24 A. That's right, yes.
25 Q. Those police personnel make the decision as to which
23
1 material is then ultimately submitted to the laboratory,
2 as it were?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Do you know, do they liaise with the detective? Is the
5 material simply left in? How do they go about their
6 business?
7 A. My experience is that they would discuss with the
8 detective, you know, along the lines of what I said,
9 "What are we trying to establish here? What are the
10 best examinations to perform to establish these issues
11 or these facts?"
12 Q. They look at the material that the detective has brought
13 along and say, "Well, that doesn't appear to be relevant
14 to what we are trying to establish. This does", and
15 then that material is passed on to yourselves. Would
16 that be --
17 A. That is correct. There was a bit of toing and froing
18 between ourselves and the Submissions Unit in the sense
19 that we would say, "Hold on a minute. We need such and
20 such and item or such and such a reference sample", or
21 whatever. So it wasn't a -- it was a two-way street.
22 Q. Would you then be aware of all the items that had been
23 left with the Submissions Unit?
24 A. We are now, but at that time, I don't think we were, no.
25 Q. Thank you. If we can turn then to your statement back
24
1 in 1997 at page [17799], you will see there below the
2 heading, etc:
3 "On 7 May ..."
4 If I can just have that highlighted, please. That's
5 fine, thank you. You will see there that says that
6 a number of items were received in the laboratory from
7 Detective Constable Keys. Then you go on to describe
8 them.
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Now, I am interested in items 7 and 8. At 7 it is WAS2,
11 one Calvin Klein shirt. Then WAS4, a purple and yellow
12 checked shirt.
13 A. Yes, I see those.
14 Q. Now, there was another shirt seized by police, which
15 bears the mark WAS3, which was certainly given -- and
16 that's to be found in the statement of
17 William Alexander Stewart, Mr Chairman -- to
18 Detective Constable Keys.
19 Can I take it from that that that was not submitted
20 to the laboratory?
21 A. Everything that was submitted to me for examination is
22 listed in this statement. So if it is not in that
23 statement, it wasn't submitted to me.
24 Q. Might it have been submitted to the Submissions Unit?
25 A. I don't know, but it may very well have been.
25
1 Q. Somebody may there have taken the decision, "That's not
2 relevant to the investigation"?
3 A. I have no direct knowledge of this, but again, that may
4 very well be.
5 Q. Thank you. There is just one final matter I want to
6 turn to, Mr Marshall. You were asked to do some further
7 work on this case. It was reviewed and there was
8 a report in 2004. Between 2002 and 2004 there was work
9 done. Isn't that correct?
10 A. That's correct, yes.
11 Q. Now, if I could first turn to your 1997 statement,
12 [17803]. If we go down to items 38 and 39, you will see
13 there:
14 "Item 38 consisted of a grey sweater."
15 These are items attributed to a Mr Hobson:
16 "A minute bloodstain was found on this pullover."
17 Now, when that says "minute bloodstain", does that
18 mean a bloodstain that's visible to the naked eye? What
19 sort of size of a bloodstain are we talking about here?
20 A. Again, I am speaking from memory. It was probably less
21 than 1 millimetre in diameter.
22 Q. It is visible to the naked eye? It's not microscopically
23 examined?
24 A. No, it would be visible to the naked eye.
25 Q. Going on to item 39, which is a black leather jacket,
26
1 and following on:
2 "Apart from the blood on item 38, none of the items
3 attributed to Hobson were bloodstained."
4 We take it from that it is quite clear there is only
5 blood on the sweatshirt
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. Now, I think when the initial approach was made for the
8 review material, you were off sick -- is that right --
9 A. I was, yes.
10 Q. -- in 2002?
11 If we could turn then to page [72895], some further
12 material was given to the Inquiry by the
13 Forensic Service. This appears to be a cover sheet to
14 that material. Can you tell me, is that your
15 handwriting on that?
16 A. That is my handwriting, yes.
17 Q. At the very bottom right, just above the page number,
18 there are the initials "LM". I take it those are your
19 initials?
20 A. That's correct, yes.
21 Q. Now, Colette then had a discussion with Detective Chief
22 Inspector K about the case and she conducted a full
23 review of the biology in this case, didn't she?
24 A. She did, yes.
25 Q. If we could turn to page [72898], now this may be
27
1 a little difficult to read, but about halfway down you
2 can just about see -- a little further up, please --
3 yes, if you could highlight that portion, yes. You will
4 see there at the top it says "Hobson". Then about seven
5 lines down you have item 38 --
6 A. Yes, I see that.
7 Q. -- which is the item I believe referred to in your 1997
8 statement --
9 A. It would be, yes.
10 Q. -- as being bloodstained. That appears to read:
11 "Sweater - no fibre examination. Minute spot of
12 blood", then an arrow, "LCN examination."
13 A. That's right, yes.
14 Q. Could you explain, please, to the Panel, the Inquiry,
15 what exactly LCN examination is?
16 A. LCN stands for Low Copy Number. It is a DNA analysis
17 technique which is much more sensitive than the routine
18 techniques, but it does have its drawbacks as well.
19 Q. Yes, I believe there is some controversy about it.
20 A. There wasn't at this time, but certainly it has arisen
21 since, yes.
22 Q. I put this to you: it can be used in cases where there
23 is as much as -- as little -- sorry -- as five or six
24 cells containing DNA. A profile might be extracted from
25 them?
28
1 A. It may be, yes.
2 Q. Then, of course, that could go up to tens of cells and
3 beyond, even?
4 A. Yes. We don't see or count cells, but you can certainly
5 get Low Copy Number from touching a surface and then
6 swabbing the surface. You may well get low copy
7 number DNA.
8 Q. In respect of item 38, given that the drop of blood was
9 visible on it with the naked eye, you would have
10 expected there to be quite a significant amount of DNA
11 material in terms of LCN?
12 A. In terms of LCN, yes. It was -- we are now talking
13 about 2002. It was probably at that time still
14 insufficient for routine testing to have a realistic
15 chance of producing a result.
16 Q. So it still would have been -- an LCN technique would
17 have probably --
18 A. It would have given you a chance of getting results.
19 Q. Would it be true to say that where there is more
20 material where LCN is utilised, repeated analysis of
21 that material can help build up a more accurate picture
22 of the DNA profile?
23 A. I don't quite understand, I am afraid.
24 Q. If we have a very small amount of DNA material, a very
25 tiny amount --
29
1 A. Right.
2 Q. -- and LCN is used, all of that material may be used up
3 in the first analysis?
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Where you have a larger amount of DNA material --
6 A. Right.
7 Q. -- such as a bloodstain that's visible --
8 A. Uh-huh.
9 Q. -- you could do repeated analysis of that DNA material?
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Taking part of the sample at a time.
11 MR McKENNA: It is to give a broad range of results from
12 which a more accurate picture can be built up. Is that
13 correct?
14 A. I still don't quite understand. I think what you said,
15 Mr Chairman, is the way I would have interpreted what's
16 being put to me; that we would subdivide the sample and
17 that would give us multiple chances of getting a result.
18 Q. That's precisely what I mean.
19 A. Personally, I would more tempted to put all my eggs in
20 one basket and try to sample -- I mean, we are starting
21 with a very small amount of material. I think I would
22 try to sample it in one go rather than subdivide.
23 THE CHAIRMAN: If you start with too little, is there a risk
24 you get nothing?
25 A. That's correct, yes, and so --
30
1 THE CHAIRMAN: Then you may get nothing again with the next
2 bit?
3 A. That's the chance you're taking.
4 MR McKENNA: If we then turn to page [72902], please, again
5 at the bottom you will see the reference. This is
6 a fax, Mr Chairman, from Colette Quinn to DCI K on
7 25th June 2002. There is a further reference at the
8 bottom to item 38. Again, a small spot of blood, LCN.
9 A. I see that.
10 Q. It seems to have been her intention.
11 A. It does, yes.
12 Q. Over the page at [72903] right at the bottom,
13 "Conclusion", she again says it is suitable for LCN.
14 She has identified three items there, one of which is
15 item 38. If we could highlight the conclusion at the
16 bottom, please.
17 A. Yes, I see that.
18 Q. If we turn then to page [72906], this, Mr Chairman, is
19 an internal police memo, which appears to have been then
20 forwarded to the Forensic Science Authority -- or
21 Agency, sorry.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: When you say internal memo, whose internal
23 memo?
24 MR McKENNA: Police. Sorry, Mr Chairman.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Forwarded to the Forensic Science Department?
31
1 MR McKENNA: Yes, because I understand it came into the
2 Inquiry's procession from the Forensic Science Agency.
3 Do you recognise that document?
4 A. I do, yes.
5 Q. Now, you will see there the third item down?
6 A. Yes, I see it.
7 Q. Again, item 38, still talking about the same item, is
8 a sweatshirt. It says:
9 "Examined bloodstain for LCN DNA. Held in secure
10 storage. RCS office, Gough."
11 A. Yes, that's right.
12 Q. Can you help us: the "RCS" initials, do you know what
13 that stands for?
14 A. No, I don't.
15 Q. Now, I think this memo, Mr Chairman, related to the
16 police communicating amongst themselves about what
17 additional work was required and whether authority could
18 be granted for it, but ultimately then, at page [72909],
19 do you see at the top -- this again seems to be
20 a Forensic Science Agency memo signed by Colette Quinn.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Is that right?
22 A. I believe so, yes.
23 MR McKENNA: That's dated 15th October 2002, Mr Chairman.
24 Again, bottom third, we see the name Hobson. Item 39:
25 "Leather jacket. Spot of blood - specialist
32
1 extraction."
2 Is that right?
3 A. Uh-huh.
4 Q. Now, in your original statement in 1997, however, which
5 I have referred you to earlier, there had been found to
6 be no bloodstaining on Mr Hobson's jacket, item 39.
7 A. Yes, that's in my statement.
8 Q. It would appear that, this being agreed additional work,
9 item 38, the sweatshirt does not appear?
10 A. It doesn't, no.
11 Q. Can we take it from that, Mr Marshall, that, in fact,
12 the LCN analysis was never carried out on item 38?
13 A. I think we can.
14 I have to say, Mr Chairman, that I was not at work
15 from April until mid-September 2002, so I wasn't privy
16 to all of these discussions.
17 Q. Indeed, Mr Marshall, in fairness to you, if we can turn
18 to [38904], the second paragraph, and if we could
19 highlight that, you say there -- this is a letter to
20 DCI K dated 17th June 2004 from yourself. Is that
21 right?
22 A. It is, yes.
23 Q. "I was unable to locate the grey sweatshirt from Hobson
24 (item 38) and think it may still be with the police in
25 Portadown. There was no bloodstaining on his leather
33
1 jacket", in fact.
2 So it appears, and I take it your recollection is
3 vague about these events, because they are quite some
4 time ago, certainly you had yourself raised the issue of
5 the grey sweatshirt --
6 A. Yes.
7 Q. -- and had referred the matter effectively back to the
8 police?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Now, can you help us in regard to LCN?
11 If an item had been kept in secure storage in Gough
12 wrapped up containing a bloodstain in 1997, would you
13 consider there is certainly the possibility that that
14 item might still be suitable for DNA analysis using the
15 LCN technique?
16 A. Given that it was stored in a cool, dry state, and given
17 that it was -- if I may start with a larger than
18 LCN-type stain, I would certainly think it would be
19 worth trying.
20 With LCN, you are starting with a lot less material,
21 but I would still -- I would give it a go. I wouldn't
22 dismiss the idea out of hand.
23 MR McKENNA: Thank you very much, Mr Marshall.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr McKenna, have the Inquiry been asked to
25 consider having an LCN test carried out?
34
1 MR McKENNA: This is a matter that has arisen really in the
2 last few hours, Mr Chairman, on a further review of the
3 evidence.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: I see. Very well.
5 MR McKENNA: Certainly it is something that will be
6 discussed.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: I take it, Mr Marshall, the LCN technique was
8 not available in 1997?
9 A. I don't think so, no, I don't think so.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr Emmerson?
11 Questions from MR EMMERSON
12 MR EMMERSON: Mr Marshall, I want to ask you some questions
13 on behalf of the Public Prosecution Service and centring
14 around the discussion that you had by telephone with
15 Mr Roger Davison on 17th November 1997.
16 First of all, I just want to clarify one matter with
17 you, if I may, about your original written report.
18 If we could just call up, please, [17802], this is,
19 as you can see, page 4 of the statement that you wrote
20 on 24th October of that year. We can see there that you
21 list on page 4 the items that were attributed to
22 Robert Hamill.
23 If we just look down to the second paragraph:
24 "Item 2 (JMcA2) consisted of a pair of blue denim
25 jeans. They were bloodstained at the bottom of both
35
1 legs, more heavily on the left. Light bloodstains were
2 found on the seat. Blood from both legs and the seat
3 was lifted for DNA typing."
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Looking at the face of the statement, there is no
6 indication on the face of the statement that there were
7 stains that had not been tested. Do you agree with
8 that?
9 A. No, there is no indication that stains ...
10 Q. I appreciate your concern was DNA comparison, but
11 somebody reading this statement, on the face of it, the
12 indications are that the staining you found had been
13 tested?
14 A. Is what you are saying, the implication is all the
15 staining I found to have been tested?
16 Q. There is no indication there was untested staining?
17 A. That's not explicitly stated, no.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Might it depend, Mr Emmerson, on what is the
19 knowledge of the reader?
20 MR EMMERSON: Well, certainly.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: You see, a layman who had no experience of
22 this might think, "Yes, that has been tested". Someone
23 who knows how laboratories go on and that they are
24 selective --
25 MR EMMERSON: Yes. It is simply a question of there being
36
1 no indication on the face of the statement that
2 selective testing was done.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: I only ask the question because the answer
4 you had from the witness may be of doubtful value. One
5 really has to ask the reader of the document what he
6 knows of the practice of the laboratory in being
7 selective and not examining or testing everything.
8 MR EMMERSON: Plainly so. There will obviously be other
9 evidence in relation to that. I am sure we have all at
10 various times seen different sorts of forensic
11 statements.
12 If we turn to [17806], just to complete the position
13 here, you have then recorded the positive results for
14 each of those lifted stains from each of the areas of
15 staining you have recorded.
16 Do you agree with that?
17 A. Yes, I have.
18 Q. Plainly, you were not being asked at that stage to give
19 any description of blood spatter analysis. It was
20 purely for DNA comparison?
21 A. That's correct, yes.
22 Q. So at that stage, there was no indication, on the face
23 of the material that you had recorded, of the shape,
24 size or distribution of those stains beyond that which
25 we have seen in that short passage.
37
1 Do you agree with that?
2 A. That's correct, yes.
3 Q. Now, you have told us about the telephone conversation
4 you had with Mr Davison on 17th November.
5 I think you said that, first of all, it was unusual
6 for you to be contacted by the Director of Public
7 Prosecutions Department directly.
8 A. That's correct, yes.
9 Q. Secondly, you understood the subtext to the conversation
10 to be: was there evidence of direct physical contact,
11 kicking or something of that kind?
12 A. That's what I took from it, yes.
13 Q. You recall being asked by Mr Underwood, Counsel for the
14 Inquiry, whether you had been told in terms that
15 Mr Bridgett had said to the police that he was never any
16 closer than ten feet to the deceased, and you were
17 asked, if you had been told that, would you have been
18 able to reach a conclusion that that statement was
19 false.
20 Do you recall being asked that question?
21 A. Yes, I do.
22 Q. You said that you would have been able to say that.
23 A. I did, yes.
24 Q. I just want to be clear, if we can, please, about the
25 circumstances, and how much you can now recall about the
38
1 circumstances in which this phone call with Mr Davison
2 came about.
3 We know from other evidence in the case that after
4 receipt of your report, senior counsel Gordon Kerr,
5 Queen's Counsel, had asked for clarification of the
6 terms of your report and, in particular, what
7 inferences, if any, could be drawn from the distribution
8 of the staining.
9 Now, was that something that you were aware of?
10 A. That Mr Kerr had asked for this clarification?
11 Q. That the phone call with Mr Davison was prompted by
12 a request for clarification from Mr Kerr about what the
13 staining could indicate?
14 A. I'm sorry. I can't recall any introduction that was
15 made in that regard.
16 Q. Again, just looking at the issues that were the subject
17 of the consultation by telephone, to see if this helps
18 you at all, could we have a look, please, at
19 page [17640]?
20 For the sake of the record, this is an extract from
21 advice by Mr Kerr on evidence following the receipt of
22 Mr Marshall's report and identifying what further areas
23 of enquiry were necessary.
24 If we could just pick it up, please, five lines down
25 from the sentence beginning:
39
1 "Forensic evidence is available and shows that blood
2 coming from him", that is to say Mr Bridgett, "was found
3 on a sample taken from the right leg of Hamill's jeans.
4 No blood from Hamill was found on his clothing, although
5 his own blood was, this despite the fact that his
6 clothes were not seized until the 6th May.
7 "This is a difficult case. Were it to be alleged by
8 a witness that Bridgett had been seen assaulting Hamill,
9 the blood evidence would be strong, confirmatory
10 evidence. As it stands, this", that is the forensic
11 evidence, "coupled with the police sightings of him at
12 the front of the crowd confirm that his account to the
13 police was not truthful."
14 Now, pausing there for a minute, plainly it appears
15 that the request for clarification from you was
16 proceeding on the assumption that the evidence as it
17 stood established that the account that Mr Bridgett had
18 given of being more than ten feet away was not truthful.
19 I just want to see if that assists you in any way in
20 your recollection of any discussion there may have been
21 about distances.
22 A. I don't recall any discussion of distances.
23 Q. Just picking it up, though:
24 "It shows that he was close enough, whilst bleeding,
25 to have dripped some blood onto the deceased or that his
40
1 blood spattered over to Mr Hamill."
2 Now, you would agree with that presumably?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. That much was clearly understood from your statement:
5 "I do not think the position is presently clear
6 enough and would like further information as to the type
7 of stain and its extent before deciding whether this
8 would be strong enough to be probative of contact."
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Now, "contact" there, one assumes meaning direct
11 physical contact between the two. I think your view is
12 that because this was a droplet rather than a smear, it
13 is clear that it had travelled through the air and that
14 there was no evidence of direct contact?
15 A. That's right, yes.
16 Q. So the question that you were being asked was answered
17 by you: namely, whether there was evidence from this
18 bloodstain of direct physical contact.
19 A. I'm not sure. I cannot recall any direct question in
20 this conversation in terms of distance or direct
21 contact.
22 Q. So when you said earlier on in your evidence that the
23 subtext was you were being asked whether there had been
24 kicking, there was evidence of kicking, what can you
25 recall about that or the origins of that subtext?
41
1 A. Perhaps I didn't express myself terribly well.
2 Perhaps what I should have said was that I was being
3 asked about the mechanism by which this stain got onto
4 the jeans. Kicking is one example, but perhaps I should
5 have said that.
6 Q. Yes. I mean, what I want to suggest to you is that the
7 primary focus of the exchange between you and Mr Davison
8 was enquiring as to whether or not the nature of the
9 blood spot was such that you could either positively
10 state that there must have been direct contact or
11 positively exclude it. That was the focus of the
12 conversation?
13 A. As I said before, I can't recall, but that's certainly
14 possible.
15 Q. Can I ask you now more generally from the training that
16 you have since had about blood spatter analysis,
17 presumably the distance over which blood can spatter
18 will depend to some extent on the type of wound one is
19 concerned with?
20 A. Only in the sense of different wounds will bleed more
21 freely -- some of them bleed more freely than others.
22 Q. If they bleed more freely, does it follow it is more
23 likely that blood spots would travel further?
24 A. Distance depends more on the vigour of movement or the
25 force involved rather than the absolute volume of blood.
42
1 Q. Obviously, we know here that there is some evidence that
2 Mr Bridgett was bleeding from his nose.
3 A. I am only aware of his nose bleeding today.
4 Q. Can you help us with this? You said in answer to
5 Mr Underwood that it is possible to exclude altogether
6 the proposition that a blood spot could travel ten feet.
7 Is that right?
8 A. In most normal circumstances, yes.
9 Q. So there are some circumstances in which that might
10 happen?
11 A. Yes, but I would imagine them to be more deliberate
12 attempts to --
13 Q. I see. Spitting?
14 A. Spitting. If you have a cut in your hand and you do
15 that in a very vigorous fashion, you may project blood
16 further.
17 Q. Or sneezing blood?
18 A. I don't think this stain --
19 Q. Looked like a sneeze.
20 A. -- looked like a sneeze, no. It was too -- sneezed
21 blood tends to be much finer spots, and this was
22 a one-penny-sized spot of blood.
23 Q. So larger than you would expect the sort of distribution
24 from a sneeze?
25 A. Oh, yes.
43
1 Q. In the course of presumably people moving backwards and
2 forwards, jostling and shuffling of the sort that seems
3 to have been taking place on this occasion, that type of
4 jolt is presumably capable of projecting, presumably,
5 blood from a bleeding nose?
6 A. I would have thought so, but I can't imagine blood from
7 a nosebleed being projected a terribly long distance.
8 Q. This is really just what I was trying to ascertain.
9 I mean, is there any learning on this subject as to how
10 far it might be projected, for example, by a jolt or
11 a push or ...?
12 A. No. I mean, most -- no. The object of blood pattern
13 analysis is really to try to reconstruct events and to
14 perhaps determine mechanisms by which a particular
15 pattern of bloodstaining arrived on a surface.
16 There is no real -- I am not aware of any study of
17 nosebleeds specifically.
18 Q. Well, I was not asking specifically about nosebleeds,
19 but about whether there was any learning about distance
20 travel in relation to bloodstain spots?
21 A. There is, yes.
22 Q. Are you able to help us at all, to give us any
23 indication as to what sorts of distances are potentially
24 or could potentially be involved with this stain?
25 A. With this particular stain? No, I am not. I am not.
44
1 Q. So you would stick, would you, by the hypothesis that,
2 other than in some very exceptional circumstance, it
3 couldn't be as much as ten feet?
4 A. Yes. As I said, exceptional circumstances.
5 Q. Beyond that, are you able to say anything more specific?
6 A. No.
7 Q. You mentioned a moment ago that the process of blood
8 spatter analysis, presumably it is extremely difficult
9 to draw any reliable inferences at all from a single
10 spot?
11 A. That's right yes, yes.
12 Q. So whatever views you may have expressed in the evidence
13 you have given, you would need to qualify them with the
14 fact that, with a single spot, it is extremely difficult
15 to speak to any pattern at all?
16 A. I think I said that earlier in my evidence; that I would
17 be very reluctant to interpret such a small amount of
18 bloodstaining.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: It is blood pattern analysis, not blood
20 spatter analysis. Blood pattern analysis, was the
21 phrase you used, I think, wasn't it?
22 A. Yes.
23 MR EMMERSON: But am I right in thinking that blood pattern
24 analysis assumes more than one spot for reliable
25 conclusions?
45
1 A. I would say so. As I say, I would be very reluctant to
2 try to interpret one spot.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: The point is, Mr Emmerson, a pattern may or
4 may not be caused by a spatter.
5 MR EMMERSON: Yes. I am sorry if I appeared to have
6 suggested otherwise. That wasn't my intention.
7 Simply, that any conclusion you might express would
8 have to be treated with very great caution, would you
9 agree, if it is based on a single spot?
10 A. Given that I would be very reluctant to make such
11 an interpretation, I would have caveats around it, yes.
12 Q. Now, in answer to a question from the Chairman you
13 expressed the view that the likely angle of strike
14 between this blood droplet, if I can use that
15 expression, and Mr Hamill's jeans was more likely than
16 not to be perpendicular --
17 A. That's right.
18 Q. -- because it was circular rather than oval?
19 A. That's right, yes.
20 Q. You also expressed the view that it was more likely than
21 not to be a drop from above. Is that right?
22 A. I think that's the simplest explanation, yes.
23 Q. I mean, are there other explanations that could account
24 for that?
25 A. We don't know the orientation of the trousers at the
46
1 time -- the moment the droplets struck them, but it
2 struck perpendicular to the surface, which means that if
3 Mr Hamill was standing up and that droplet struck his
4 trousers, the blood was travelling horizontally.
5 Q. Or some combination between the two, such as
6 an individual whose leg is not straight and an
7 individual whose head is not straight?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Any combination of angles could produce that result. Do
10 you agree?
11 A. As long as you end up with a droplet striking the
12 trousers perpendicularly, yes.
13 Q. You have come up with, in the explanation that has been
14 put to you and that you have responded to, a plausible
15 hypothesis as to how it may have ended up on the jeans
16 in that particular shape. Yes?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. You are not suggesting, are you, that you could testify
19 to the proposition that you are sure beyond reasonable
20 doubt that that is the way in which the blood spot got
21 there?
22 A. No, I am not. I think the phrase I used was "consistent
23 with".
24 Q. It is not something which, in your view, could result in
25 a conclusion of certainty?
47
1 A. No.
2 MR EMMERSON: Thank you.
3 REV. BARONESS KATHLEEN RICHARDSON: May I ask: had you known
4 at the time that Stacey Bridgett was having a nosebleed,
5 would that have altered your conclusions?
6 A. No, I don't think it would.
7 REV. BARONESS KATHLEEN RICHARDSON: Can I ask another one?
8 On two occasions, blood A and blood B unknown have
9 been mentioned.
10 A. Yes.
11 REV. BARONESS KATHLEEN RICHARDSON: Would it have been
12 common practice to have tested all the suspects for
13 their blood grouping?
14 A. We test all the reference samples that are sent to us by
15 the police. My experience is that the police will
16 routinely take reference material from any suspect.
17 REV. BARONESS KATHLEEN RICHARDSON: I mean, is it right to
18 assume that those bloodstains did not come from any of
19 the known suspects?
20 A. I would have to refer to my statement to see which of
21 the suspects I received reference material from, but it
22 certainly didn't come from any of the suspects from whom
23 I received reference material.
24 REV. BARONESS KATHLEEN RICHARDSON: You would have only
25 known had there had been bloodstains on the clothing?
48
1 You wouldn't have got direct blood reference material
2 from the police?
3 A. From suspects?
4 REV. BARONESS KATHLEEN RICHARDSON: Yes.
5 A. We would normally get blood or mouth swabs from the
6 police as reference material. Bloodstained clothing is
7 not necessarily traceable back to the wearer of the
8 clothing.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr O'Connor?
10 Questions from MR O'CONNOR
11 MR O'CONNOR: Just a couple of matters, Mr Marshall.
12 In relation to the question that was just asked, you
13 used the term "reference material". Can that be blood
14 or swabs or other reference material? It doesn't
15 necessarily have to be blood?
16 A. No. Nowadays, it is more commonly a mouth swab.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Anything which contains DNA?
18 A. Anything which contains DNA.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: It doesn't have to be blood?
20 A. No.
21 MR O'CONNOR: Thank you. Just two questions then.
22 In relation to delay in the Forensic Service of
23 Northern Ireland in 1997, is it fair to say that the
24 Service was under a lot of pressure at that time?
25 A. We were, yes.
49
1 Q. I think, to use your own term, that was due to
2 under-resourcing, pressure of work and the volume of
3 work.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. You were interviewed on 17th December last year by
6 Michael Stephens of the Crown Solicitors Office (sic), and
7 that's the term you used when referring to delay?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. You hoped in those days to turn around a case in
10 120 days normally?
11 A. I can't remember the precise target, but there was
12 a certain percentage of cases in 120 days.
13 Q. Then if that became a DPP file in those days, you hoped
14 to speed that up to about 80 days?
15 A. That's right, yes.
16 Q. In this case, which did become a DPP file, the time
17 between 10th May 1997 and your report dated
18 24th October 1997 was approximately 151 days?
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. Again, that's simply down to those three things you
21 mentioned about lack of resources?
22 A. It is down to lack of resources.
23 I have to add, however, the finding of any substance
24 was relayed to the police within two days of testing
25 commencing.
50
1 Q. Yes. You did that in relation to Stacey Bridgett?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. And you gave that information to Michael Irwin?
4 A. I can't recall who in the police I gave it to.
5 MR O'CONNOR: Thank you.
6 Questions from MR WAITE
7 MR WAITE: Mr Marshall, you were asked by the last
8 questioner about delay in relation to the report. Just
9 to confirm, that is a matter which you have addressed in
10 detail, isn't it, in your second statement?
11 A. It is, yes.
12 Q. So everyone is aware, you have set out in that statement
13 your workload at the point of being involved in the
14 Hamill case?
15 A. I have, yes.
16 Q. Your rate of completion of reports in the year in
17 question?
18 A. Yes.
19 Q. You have addressed the issue, also, of staffing in your
20 department?
21 A. I have, yes.
22 Q. You have addressed the issue of whether the delay in
23 this case was significantly out of line with other
24 cases?
25 A. I have, yes.
51
1 Q. I am grateful.
2 If I could just return to one question asked by
3 Mr Emmerson, and it is this: was it generally known
4 amongst the Prosecution Service, generally known by
5 people of the relevant seniority, that the
6 Forensic Service had to be selective in deciding which
7 samples to take from clothing?
8 A. I think everybody knew that, yes.
9 MR WAITE: I am very grateful.
10 MR EMMERSON: Sorry. I rose to my feet because obviously
11 that's a question which needs to be directed at those
12 within the Service rather than at this witness, but
13 there it is. It is on the record.
14 MR WAITE: My Lord, in my submission, he raised the issue.
15 I was entitled to address it.
16 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, I agree.
17 Further questions from MR UNDERWOOD
18 MR UNDERWOOD: Just one matter arising. You were asked at
19 some length about the discussion you had with Mr Davison
20 in late 1997. Have I got this right? At that stage,
21 you would have held yourself out as having no expertise
22 on blood pattern?
23 A. I would have held myself out as having considerable --
24 I had read about it, I had considerable experience of
25 it, but I had no formal training.
52
1 Q. Can you recall what reservations you expressed to
2 Mr Davison when he asked you to give an opinion?
3 A. I think it's the reservation I have given to the Inquiry
4 that there simply wasn't enough material to form
5 a meaningful conclusion.
6 Q. Did he ask you whether there was any other material on
7 the jeans that might have been from Mr Bridgett?
8 A. I don't recall that.
9 MR UNDERWOOD: Thank you very much.
10 Questions from THE CHAIRMAN
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Just one or two matters. We read in one of
12 the forms that you had received in the department, in
13 the laboratory, items from, for example, DC Keys.
14 Are we to read that as meaning that you received
15 from the Submissions Department items which had been
16 taken by DC Keys to the Submissions Department?
17 A. That's it, yes.
18 Q. Not directly from him?
19 A. Not directly from him. I think I used the phrase
20 "received in the laboratory". I wanted to convey he
21 brought them to the laboratory, but not to me.
22 Q. The system there was of having a police unit working as
23 a filter, is there a risk with that that an officer
24 looking at what should be filtered fails to see that
25 something has a potential which you, as a forensic
53
1 scientist, would see?
2 A. There is that danger, yes.
3 Q. Is that still present or has the system changed?
4 A. The system has changed, in that, in those days, the
5 forms were filled in in the Submissions Unit; in other
6 words, the filtering was done before the forms were
7 filled in.
8 Now the forms are filled in. Everything that is
9 seized for laboratory examination appears on the forms
10 and some of them may be crossed out or marked, you know
11 "not submitted", but at least nowadays I am aware of all
12 the material which may be available.
13 Q. Does that necessarily overcome the problem that the man
14 acting as a filter thinks nothing is of value on
15 a particular item that you, as a forensic scientist,
16 might say, "Yes, there is"? Does it avoid that
17 difficulty?
18 A. To a large degree it does, in that I can go back to the
19 police and say, "You haven't submitted this item or that
20 item, but I think it would be of value to look at them".
21 That's the way the system works now.
22 Q. How would you decide that it might be of value to look?
23 A. There are some examinations which the police may not
24 request, but which, when I am reading a file, I might
25 say, "Oh, it would be worth looking for this
54
1 particular -- performing this particular examination",
2 and I will go back at that stage and say, "I think it
3 would be worth looking at these items for whatever", and
4 ask to have them sent in.
5 Q. Yes. Can I just ask you about a spot of blood which is
6 about the size of a penny coin across, a 1p coin across?
7 I appreciate that, as a liquid soaks in, it may
8 expand across the surface into which it is soaking, but
9 is it quite a large drop of blood which would make
10 a mark?
11 A. Yes. I would say, yes, it would be a fairly large drop
12 of blood.
13 Q. Now, if you have a fairly large spot of blood going
14 through the air and landing on a vertical or an oblique
15 surface, are you more likely to get some running from
16 that?
17 A. That largely depends on the size of the drop of blood
18 and the absorbency of the surface. An absorbent surface
19 like cloth, you would get less running than on a painted
20 wall, for example.
21 Q. But is it of relevance in looking at the fact that it
22 was a circular pattern in deciding whether it was blood
23 which fell vertically or may have come at an angle?
24 A. I am sorry.
25 Q. Bearing in mind the amount of blood.
55
1 A. I don't quite understand.
2 Q. When you consider the material upon which the blood fell
3 and the amount of blood also, does that enable you to
4 say, "Well, it could be this, but I think it is more
5 likely to be the other, that it fell vertically"?
6 A. All I can say is that it struck the surface
7 perpendicularly, as you said before, Mr Chairman.
8 I can't go any further than that.
9 Q. So the fact that it is not a pear-shaped drop, you say
10 it doesn't help you?
11 A. Well, it tells me it struck the surface perpendicularly,
12 but other than that, I couldn't really go any further.
13 Q. You did say you thought dropping vertically it was
14 a more likely explanation?
15 A. That is getting away from blood pattern analysis and
16 just into what I call common sense, if you like.
17 Q. Yes. That's an exercise of common sense to say that.
18 I am not suggesting you are wrong, but that's exercising
19 common sense?
20 A. Yes. It isn't science, I am afraid.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
22 Questions from SIR JOHN EVANS
23 SIR JOHN EVANS: I would just like to pursue a question put
24 to you by Mr McKenna. The item, which is a shirt
25 reference WAS3, Mr McKenna, as I understood it, asked
56
1 you, because it wasn't on your report, it therefore
2 wasn't submitted. I think you responded it had not been
3 submitted to you.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. The question Mr McKenna then came up with was, "Is it
6 possible it did go to the Submissions Unit and was
7 filtered?"
8 A. I have no direct knowledge, but that is possible, yes.
9 Q. Okay. Have you any direct knowledge, or have you been
10 asked to direct your mind to any other reports which
11 might contain this item? Are there any other reports of
12 submissions that you dealt with in this case?
13 A. Everything which was submitted for biology examination
14 is listed in my statements of witness. I am not aware
15 of any other items.
16 SIR JOHN EVANS: Thank you.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Then we will take a few minutes' break now.
18 MR UNDERWOOD: Thank you very much, Mr Marshall.
19 (The witness withdrew).
20 (12.10 pm)
21 (A short break)
22 (12.25 pm)
23 MR UNDERWOOD: Colette Quinn, please.
24 MISS COLETTE CHRISTINE QUINN (sworn)
25
57
1 Questions from MR UNDERWOOD
2 MR UNDERWOOD: Morning, Miss Quinn.
3 A. Morning.
4 Q. My name is Underwood. I am Counsel to the Inquiry.
5 I have a very few questions for you. At the end of
6 that, it may well be there are some follow-up questions
7 from others.
8 What are your full names, please?
9 A. Colette Christine Quinn.
10 Q. Thank you. If we look at page [81101], we will see the
11 start of a document that runs to six pages. Can I ask
12 you to keep your eyes on the screen while we scroll
13 through those six pages briefly?
14 Is that your witness statement?
15 A. It is.
16 Q. Is it true?
17 A. It is.
18 Q. I want to ask a little bit about the Submissions Unit
19 and how things get filtered out between police and
20 analysts, firstly in 1997 and now.
21 In 1997, this was the position, was it: that when
22 materials were submitted to FSANI by the police service
23 that the Submissions Unit would conduct a filter of
24 which items to pass on to the scientists?
25 A. In the majority of cases, yes. In large, complex cases
58
1 the scientist and the police officer would normally get
2 together and discuss what items they'd want to bring in
3 on a case.
4 Q. Can you help us with what would have been regarded as
5 the limiting factor of what was or was not a large,
6 complex case? Take this case, for example. I think you
7 know quite a lot about it now.
8 A. Yes. It would be a large, complex case.
9 Q. So you would have expected in 1997, would you, for there
10 to have been a dialogue between your service and the RUC
11 at the outset about what items would have been examined
12 for perhaps DNA or fibre transfer?
13 A. It would depend on whether or not a discussion had taken
14 place between the police themselves at the outset.
15 At that stage, the police had very experienced
16 Scenes of Crimes Officers. They sometimes acted as the
17 filter for material coming in as opposed to going to the
18 Submissions Unit.
19 Q. So what would have been the position? Would it have
20 been this: that if an experienced Scenes of Crimes
21 Officer had given a package of materials to FSANI, that
22 there would have been no further screening?
23 A. In a case like this, probably there wouldn't have been
24 any further screening.
25 Q. Right. We know, because we have seen the submission
59
1 forms, that Form A contained in this case a short resume
2 of the incident.
3 A. That's correct.
4 Q. Would you have expected, as a matter of course in
5 a large, complex case there to be further discussion
6 between the Service and the police about the events?
7 A. I would have, yes.
8 Q. We know from Mr Marshall that he had to discriminate
9 about what samples to take from the clothing he was
10 given; in other words, what to test. That was,
11 presumably, perfectly normal?
12 A. Yes, that would be standard practice.
13 Q. Would you have expected that exercise of discrimination
14 to be informed by discussion with the police about, for
15 example, the numbers of suspects there may be?
16 A. It very much would depend on what he was actually
17 looking for.
18 Q. Moving on to the position now, have things changed in
19 terms of the, as it were, interface between the police
20 and your Service?
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Can you explain briefly for us how things have moved on?
23 A. There is now a much more -- there is now much more focus
24 on having case conferences in relation to major
25 incidents.
60
1 Q. Uh-huh.
2 A. There are now crime scene managers and there is -- they
3 actually interface a lot more with the police as well
4 and then they would interface with the laboratory.
5 Q. Right. So in practical terms, what happens? Are there
6 discussions before a report is given?
7 A. As soon as the incident happens and before material
8 would be submitted to the laboratory, there would be
9 discussions take place to determine which items should
10 be examined.
11 Q. Right.
12 A. The police now, from my experience, operate a system
13 whereby a lot of the material is collected at scenes and
14 is now logged. So everything is logged, and it would be
15 the function of the case conference to go through the
16 material and determine what is actually relevant to our
17 examination.
18 Q. Okay. Going back to 1997, we know that there was one
19 positive result in the testing that Mr Marshall had
20 conducted, which was that some blood on Mr Hamill's
21 jeans was found to have belonged to Mr Bridgett, one of
22 the suspects.
23 Now, would you have expected, as a matter of course,
24 that that would lead to some further dialogue between
25 the two services?
61
1 A. Not necessarily. If that was going to be -- it would
2 either be a verbal report where you would contact the
3 investigating officer and tell him what the results
4 were, or, if you were going to -- if it came close to
5 actually putting out a full statement, then you would
6 put off that decision until you had got your complete
7 report.
8 Q. So the position is this -- just think yourself back to
9 1997 -- if you were a reporting officer who had
10 discriminated between the samples that you had been
11 given, so you had only tested some of them, and you had
12 found a positive match between one of the samples you
13 had tested and one of the suspects, and you had reported
14 that back, would you have expected the police to come
15 back and say, "Fine. Carry on. Do some more tests.
16 See if you can find some more links between suspects and
17 your materials"?
18 A. It would very much depend on the pattern of
19 bloodstaining on the actual item we found.
20 Obviously, if there were more people who were
21 thought to have been involved in an incident and you had
22 a very heavily bloodstained garment, then that
23 discussion may have taken place.
24 If it was a very lightly stained blood garment, then
25 in actually interpreting the blood pattern that was
62
1 there, you may have decided that that stain was
2 representative of the blood that was on that item.
3 Q. You see, the interesting thing here that the Panel might
4 want to have to resolve is that there was quite a lot of
5 blood on Mr Hamill's clothing, wasn't there?
6 A. I can't really remember.
7 Q. Right. Take it from me there was quite a lot, including
8 some quite heavy staining on the back of a jacket, which
9 wasn't tested.
10 A. Right.
11 Q. The submission Form A said -- and I summarise -- that
12 a number of the suspects were bleeding.
13 A. Right.
14 Q. Now, despite that, only one match is found on one piece
15 of the material that's analysed with one of the suspects
16 who was said to have been bleeding.
17 Would you have expected the police to come back and
18 say, "Gosh! That's helpful. Thanks. Now, what about
19 the rest?"
20 A. I would actually have been very surprised if the police
21 had come back --
22 Q. "Had" or "hadn't"?
23 A. Had.
24 Q. Uh-huh.
25 A. Because they would expect us to make the interpretation
63
1 as to the material that was found.
2 So if there was only piece -- if there was only one
3 bloodstain that was actually analysed, and that was
4 found to match one of the suspects -- I mean, I can only
5 speak for my experience -- had that been representative
6 of the pattern that was there, that's all I would have
7 analysed.
8 Had there been two or more patterns there, I would
9 have taken additional stains to -- not necessarily to
10 identify another person, but to see if the patterns were
11 actually connected.
12 Q. Yes. I am not asking you to be critical of Mr Marshall,
13 because I wasn't, and I am not trying to do this by the
14 back door.
15 I am trying to get the picture across for the Panel
16 just how much responsibility was thrust on your Service.
17 It is the case then, is it, that it was entirely
18 a matter for you, or someone in your position if you
19 were doing the reporting, to determine how much of the
20 samples to test?
21 A. In the majority of cases, it is.
22 Q. You wouldn't expect any dialogue whatever with the
23 police after you had reported?
24 A. Again, it would very much depend on what has been
25 reported back.
64
1 If it has been reported back to say, "This garment
2 is heavily bloodstained. We know there are a number of
3 suspects in this case. We would like to take some more
4 samples. Is this okay?"
5 Q. What I am getting at is this: we have samples from the
6 suspects --
7 A. Yes.
8 Q. -- we have quite a lot of blood on the clothes of the
9 victim.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. As normal, not all of that blood is tested.
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. There is a positive match found.
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. Notwithstanding that, you wouldn't have expected any
16 further dialogue? You wouldn't have expected the police
17 to come back and say, "Well, have you tested all the
18 blood?"
19 A. That wouldn't normally happen.
20 Q. Right. The position now?
21 A. In the majority of cases, it probably doesn't happen.
22 We would simply report that the items have been
23 bloodstained and that, for instance, we have found blood
24 on the arms or the legs, the front and the back, and
25 that we have taken stains from A, B and C, which maybe
65
1 is the arm, the front and the back. We have analysed
2 them and the results are as follows.
3 Now, in the majority of cases the police will take
4 it that we have examined the item and that we have taken
5 stains from the relevant places
6 Q. Would you not have expected a dialogue in 1997, for
7 example, to this effect? Where you have in the
8 submission Form A an assertion that a number of people
9 thought to be involved in the assault were bleeding,
10 would you have expected a question to go up, "Well, who?
11 Which one of these people? Whose blood are we looking
12 for?"
13 A. The fact that you have actually identified a bloodstain
14 and it matches someone else, and, again, depending on
15 what the pattern was on that item, it may well be that
16 it was decided that that pattern represented the blood
17 from that individual.
18 Q. I see what you mean, but what I am getting at is this.
19 Let me be brutal about this. A number of people were
20 charged with murder. No-one was convicted of murder.
21 Somebody murdered Mr Hamill.
22 All the suspects -- the DNA, rather, of all the
23 suspects was given to your Service.
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. You were told that a number of people thought to be
66
1 involved had been bleeding.
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Not all the blood was tested.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. Now, your evidence is this is all perfectly normal. Is
6 that right?
7 A. In the majority of cases, depending on what the
8 bloodstaining is on the garment.
9 Q. It would still be perfectly normal?
10 A. It would still be perfectly normal. If the staining was
11 such that the scientist thought that there could be more
12 blood from other individuals there --
13 THE CHAIRMAN: So, if you get a mark which is discrete, you
14 would say, "We had better have a go at that as well"?
15 A. Yes. We would identify bloodstaining in terms of
16 whether or not it is very, very fine spots, in which
17 case you have projected blood, or whether it is smears,
18 in which case it has been in contact with another
19 surface.
20 So we would look -- you also get contact stains
21 where maybe a pattern has been in contact with wet
22 blood. So you use all of those indicators to try to put
23 together a picture of what has actually happened to that
24 item.
25 Now, if there is a large amount of bloodstaining on
67
1 a garment, you may well identify a number of those
2 different patterns, in which case we would tend to go
3 back to the police and say, "Look, we have a lot of
4 bloodstaining here. We are going to take more samples
5 to try to identify an individual."
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Would it help us, rather than hypothesise, to
7 look at the diagram of the trousers [72304]?
8 MR UNDERWOOD: In fact, I was going to go to the jacket
9 first, if that's all right, at page [72303].
10 Please don't think I am being critical here, because
11 we are still mystified by what Mr Irwin could have meant
12 when he said, "A number of people thought to be involved
13 in this assault were bleeding", because we only know of
14 one of them.
15 I am not suggesting there was a want of due
16 diligence which went anywhere here. What the Panel
17 might want to know is just what the system is now and
18 whether it is safe.
19 If we look at page [72303], we see the front and
20 back of Mr Hamill's jacket.
21 A. Yes.
22 Q. Now looking at the bottom, the back, there is
23 bloodstaining around the collar described as heavy
24 staining. It wasn't tested in 1997.
25 A. Yes.
68
1 Q. It was tested in 2003. Look at the one below that, the
2 rather fairly vertical mark, which again is described as
3 heavy staining. Again, it was not tested in 1997.
4 A. Yes.
5 Q. We can see then other arrows to three or four other
6 lifts, but that still leaves about half a dozen stains
7 which still haven't been tested.
8 Now, would you say those are not necessary for
9 testing, because they form part of the same pattern as
10 something else?
11 A. I would have -- personally speaking, I would have tested
12 the one on the front, the one on the cuffs and one of
13 the ones from around the collar area or on the back,
14 because they look -- they are heavy staining, and
15 I would have taken those and processed them and seen
16 what we have got.
17 If then you wanted additional work, we would have
18 gone back and had another look at it.
19 Q. Again, please don't think I am being critical of
20 decisions made at the time. What I am trying to get at
21 is this: if it were right that the submission form were
22 to say, "A number of people thought to be involved were
23 bleeding", and if you have blood on the victim's
24 clothes, surely all the blood would be tested?
25 A. No.
69
1 Q. Why not?
2 A. Because it's -- again, it is -- you are making
3 an assessment of what's in front of you and you are
4 trying to decide on the best way to take the
5 investigation further. So if you are looking at that,
6 you know that there is bloodstaining on the front of the
7 jacket, so you are going to sample it. There is
8 bloodstaining on the sleeve, so you sample it. You know
9 that there is bloodstaining on the rear of the jacket,
10 so I would have sampled it.
11 Once that's done, you would then find out who that
12 could be attributed to
13 Q. Uh-huh.
14 A. From that, you would then find out if there was
15 an indication if there was more than one person actually
16 bleeding at that time.
17 Q. What if it showed you that there were two people
18 bleeding at the time but you had information that there
19 were more than that bleeding at the time?
20 A. I would probably then go back and take some more
21 samples.
22 Q. Would you carry on taking samples until you had
23 determined that all the people you thought to be
24 bleeding were either represented on this or were
25 excluded from this?
70
1 A. No, I would actually go back and have a further
2 discussion with the police to find out the reality of
3 the situation.
4 Q. Can I put it this simply: you wouldn't stop testing
5 until you were satisfied that all the blood on the
6 jacket was accounted for?
7 A. No. I wouldn't stop testing until I had assured myself
8 that the patterns on the jacket had been attributed to
9 individuals.
10 I do have to say that sometimes what's on our
11 submission sheets doesn't really bear a lot of
12 resemblance to the actual incidents themselves, and our
13 practice would be to try to clarify the information
14 before we would start sampling, because there are
15 obviously resource implications in there as well.
16 Q. Right. As I say, to be entirely fair, we don't know
17 what Mr Irwin meant when he said that people thought to
18 be involved in this assault were -- more than one of
19 them was bleeding, because, as I say, we only know that
20 one of them was bleeding.
21 Can we be clear about this: that if you were now
22 being presented with information to the effect that
23 a number of potential suspects were bleeding at the
24 scene, and you have blood on the victim's clothes, that
25 you would get to the heart of what you needed to test
71
1 and you would not leave it alone until you were
2 satisfied you had made attributions for all of the
3 patterns --
4 A. For all of the patterns, but obviously not all of the
5 bloodstains.
6 Q. Certainly. There is one other matter I would like to
7 ask you about, if I may. That's the forensic strategy
8 insofar as one could be discerned from the materials
9 that were submitted to your organisation in May 1997.
10 You told us in your witness statement -- we can look
11 at it, if necessary -- that you found no indication of
12 a forensic strategy being in place then.
13 What would you have expected to have seen in order
14 to be able to discern what strategy was in place, if
15 any?
16 A. I would have expected some sort of a note to indicate
17 obviously the number of people who had actually been
18 injured, the number of people who had been seen in the
19 area and the injuries to the injured parties.
20 Q. So in more detail than was in the submission form, in
21 fact?
22 A. Yes.
23 MR UNDERWOOD: Right. That's very kind. Thank you very
24 much. As I said, other people may have some more
25 questions.
72
1 MR WOLFE: No questions, sir.
2 Questions from MR McKENNA
3 MR McKENNA: Thank you, Mr Chairman.
4 Miss Quinn, my name is McKenna. I want to ask you
5 a number of questions on behalf of the Hamill family.
6 Now, you first became involved in this investigation
7 in 2002. Is that right?
8 A. That's correct.
9 Q. You were asked by DCI K -- he is ciphered; you may have
10 a cipher list in front of you -- to review the biology
11 in the case?
12 A. That's correct.
13 Q. Have you had an opportunity to look over -- you made
14 some handwritten records at the time. Have you had
15 an opportunity to look at those?
16 A. Yes, I have looked at them.
17 Q. We know from the evidence of Mr Marshall that two items
18 from a Mr Hobson were originally submitted to the
19 laboratory back in 1997, and they were item 38,
20 a sweatshirt bearing a small drop of blood -- "minute"
21 I think it is described as --
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. -- and a black leather jacket which was found to have no
24 blood on it.
25 A. That's correct.
73
1 THE CHAIRMAN: Just give me the item number for the leather
2 jacket.
3 MR McKENNA: Sorry. Item 39. I apologise, Mr Chairman.
4 You conducted a review and you came to the
5 conclusion -- I think it can be found at [72903] on the
6 screen -- this is the conclusion table where you have
7 set out the material that could be looked at again. Is
8 that right? Do you recognise that document?
9 A. Yes, I recognise the document.
10 Q. Your conclusion is that:
11 "Additional samples could be analysed for SGM+
12 DNA or, if already failed, LCN DNA."
13 The Panel know that's Low Copy Number analysis. We
14 have heard some evidence from Mr Marshall about that,
15 how it works?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. You have identified there in brackets item number 38 as
18 being suitable for LCN.
19 A. That's correct.
20 Q. Then I think according to your statement there was some
21 discussion with DCI K and the investigating officers as
22 to what work they wanted done and whether authority
23 could be obtained for it, etc. Is that right?
24 A. That's right.
25 Q. I want to turn to a document [72904] and see if you
74
1 recognise this document.
2 A. I do, yes.
3 Q. This emanated from the Forensic Science Agency. It was
4 received by the Inquiry from yourselves, but --
5 A. Yes. This document was a result of the discussions that
6 we had and the items that we were looking for to see
7 where they were --
8 Q. Yes.
9 A. -- and the police had -- were identifying where they
10 actually were.
11 Q. Yes. It appears to be an internal PSNI memo, and
12 annotated on are the locations of the various items
13 which you had referred to.
14 A. That's correct.
15 Q. Now, if we could turn to page [72906], you see there the
16 third item down is item 38. It is the sweatshirt.
17 A. Yes, that's right.
18 Q. Again, there is a reference to LCN DNA. Then there is
19 a handwritten entry below it:
20 "Held in Secure Storage.
21 "RCS office, Gough."
22 A. Yes.
23 Q. Can you help us as to what the initials "RCS" stand for?
24 A. No.
25 Q. Would that be a police --
75
1 A. It is a police designation.
2 Q. So that handwritten note appears to be someone in the
3 police service informing the Forensic Science Agency of
4 the location of that item. Would that be correct?
5 A. That's correct.
6 Q. Finally, I want to turn to a document [72909]. This is
7 a memo, it would appear, prepared by yourself?
8 A. That's correct.
9 Q. It is dated 15th October 2002. It is on the next page,
10 Mr Chairman, but you will see that the penultimate name
11 on that document is Hobson.
12 A. Yes. I have made a mistake there. It should have been
13 item 39. I typed up the previous -- the notes from the
14 previous conversation we had had with the police and
15 instead of item 38, I put item 39, because there was no
16 blood on that item.
17 Q. We know from your statement of evidence that you were
18 involved initially in this matter because Mr Marshall
19 was on sick leave.
20 A. That's correct.
21 Q. I think in your statement to the Inquiry you said that
22 you handed back to him after a meeting on
23 9th October 2002?
24 A. That's correct.
25 Q. Was that a meeting with police?
76
1 A. Yes, that was a meeting to assess the impact of carrying
2 out this work on the actual -- the normal work that we
3 would do, how long it was likely to take and obviously
4 the resources involved.
5 Q. Then you had prepared this agreed additional work
6 schedule, as it were, after that meeting?
7 A. No, I don't think that was agreed after the meeting.
8 That was just -- that was an agreement of -- that's just
9 a write-up of the work that we had agreed --
10 Q. Should be done?
11 A. -- should be done, yes.
12 Q. But that obviously includes the mistaken entry that
13 item 39 should be examined?
14 A. Yes, that's correct.
15 Q. Now, would you know -- then Mr Marshall obviously took
16 over the file?
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Presumably, he would have based his further
19 investigations on the material that you had supplied to
20 him. Is that right?
21 A. No, not necessarily. I briefed him when he came back on
22 what we had agreed to do. It wouldn't just have been on
23 this. I mean, it would have been on the conversations we
24 had as well.
25 Q. In fairness to Mr Marshall, he did write a letter then
77
1 to DCI K on 17th June 2004, when he had ultimately
2 completed his investigations, where he --
3 A. That item hadn't come in.
4 Q. You had been unable to locate the sweatshirt?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. What would have been the position if, as you say, the
7 Forensic Science Agency had agreed to undertake work in
8 respect of an item and then discovered it wasn't in
9 their possession but was in the possession of the
10 police?
11 A. We would normally ask for it to be -- obviously the work
12 we had agreed to do, we would have asked for those items
13 to be submitted.
14 Q. So from what Mr Marshall has written on 17th June 2004,
15 can we take it that that item was never submitted to
16 Forensics?
17 A. That's correct.
18 MR McKENNA: Thank you.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr O'Connor?
20 Questions from MR O'CONNOR
21 MR O'CONNOR: One or two short matters.
22 You were asked at paragraph 73, line 7 -- you give
23 an answer about what you would expect to be indicated to
24 you as a forensic science officer. I want to ask you
25 about this statement.
78
1 Would you agree that the forensic strategy was
2 focused and proportionate in this case?
3 A. There is no -- there was no forensic strategy in the
4 case that I was aware of.
5 Q. Yes.
6 A. So I don't know if the police had their own forensic
7 strategy.
8 Q. Yes. So you can't give any evidence to the Inquiry
9 today about the police's forensic strategy?
10 A. No, I can't make any comment on it.
11 Q. You are not criticising any police forensic strategy at
12 all today?
13 A. Because I haven't seen any forensic strategy, I can't
14 comment on it.
15 Q. Secondly, in 1997 -- as I understand it, today the
16 police can pay money to hurry up a forensic report.
17 There is a fast-tracking system nowadays.
18 A. Yes, that would be correct.
19 Q. Can you confirm, in 1997, there was no way for
20 an investigating officer to come along to the FSANI and
21 say, "Look, we have extra resources to hurry that one
22 along". It took as long as it took?
23 A. The implication that there are additional resources
24 there isn't accurate.
25 Q. Yes.
79
1 A. What happens is that an investigating officer will come
2 to the lab and say that a case is urgent and they want
3 X, Y and Z expedited.
4 Now, on paper, that indicates that there is
5 an additional cost incurred by doing that, and that's
6 something that has come in recently, but at the moment
7 there is actually no money changes hands. We work on
8 the same budget, effectively, no matter what we do.
9 Q. That system is in place now? It wasn't in place in
10 1997?
11 A. The system was -- there was no actual system whereby we
12 told them we were charging extra to get the work put
13 through, but there is no money actually changes hands as
14 such.
15 Q. I just want to be clear about this. There is a system
16 in place now where you can hurry things along?
17 A. We could still -- we still did things urgently, but
18 there was no -- there was no indication of what it would
19 cost at that stage. We now give an indication of the
20 fact that it does cost slightly more to get it done
21 quickly, but it's not a transactional charge. So there
22 is no actual money takes place.
23 MR O'CONNOR: Thank you.
24 THE CHAIRMAN: So in effect you would say now, "Yes, we can
25 do this, but if we do, it is going to cost our
80
1 department X pounds"?
2 A. That's the basis of it, but we don't actually charge --
3 THE CHAIRMAN: No, I follow that.
4 A. -- and most of the investigating officers would know
5 that we don't actually charge. So it is just
6 a mechanism for trying to control what we are asked to
7 do urgently.
8 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
9 MR UNDERWOOD: There is nothing arising. Thank you.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much.
11 MR UNDERWOOD: Thank you, Miss Quinn.
12 (The witness withdrew)
13 THE CHAIRMAN: 2 o'clock.
14 MR UNDERWOOD: Can I just mention that Jason McClure, who is
15 the witness to come next, needs to be out of here by
16 3 o'clock to catch a flight. I hope that's going to fit
17 with everybody's timescales. I invite anybody to say
18 now if they think that's wrong.
19 THE CHAIRMAN: Right. Then we shall still have an hour,
20 otherwise we would have had less.
21 MR UNDERWOOD: Thank you.
22 (1.00 pm)
23 (The luncheon adjournment)
24 (2.00 pm)
25 MR UNDERWOOD: Jason McClure, please.
81
1 MR JASON McCLURE (sworn)
2 Questions from MR UNDERWOOD
3 MR UNDERWOOD: Afternoon, Mr McClure. My name is Underwood.
4 I am Counsel to the Inquiry. I have some questions for
5 you and then some other people may have some follow-up
6 questions. All right?
7 What are your full names, please?
8 A. Just Jason.
9 Q. The Inquiry drafted a statement for you. I gather that
10 there are bits and pieces of it that you are not
11 comfortable with. Is that right?
12 A. That's correct.
13 Q. We will ignore that entirely. What I want to do is take
14 you to some statements you made to the police?
15 A. Okay.
16 Q. If we look at page [09165], is this a statement you made
17 on 26th June 1997?
18 A. That's correct.
19 Q. Do you recall making this statement now?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Do you recall seeing the police at all in 1997 about
22 this matter?
23 A. I remember seeing the police, like, but I can't remember
24 what year it was, I think it was something like twice.
25 Q. If you did see the person who says you made this
82
1 statement, would you have told the truth?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. It is Sergeant Bradley. Does that name ring a bell?
4 A. No.
5 Q. Then if you look at page [17308], this is another
6 statement which is said to have been made by you on
7 23rd January 2001. Did you make that one?
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Can you recall making that?
10 A. No.
11 Q. Again, same question: would you have told the truth?
12 A. Yes.
13 Q. In this there are a couple of differences, or a couple
14 of additions, I should say, to what you said in the
15 earlier statement. If we have a look at [17308],
16 halfway down it, in the middle of the page pretty much,
17 there is a sentence which says:
18 "I saw the police at the fight. They appeared to be
19 breaking the fight up."
20 Do you see that?
21 A. Yes, I see it.
22 Q. Do you remember whether a police officer suggested that
23 line to you or whether that was something of your own
24 that you wanted to put in?
25 A. It wasn't suggested to me.
83
1 Q. Then if we split the page with this and [17309], and we
2 pick up the last sentence that goes over the page, the
3 very last line, you say:
4 "I left the party around 5.00 or 6.00 in the morning
5 and walked down the town to the taxi with
6 Allister Hanvey and Christopher Henderson. I saw police
7 in the town but I don't recall speaking to any of them.
8 I was very drunk that night and my memory is poor.
9 I can't remember anything else about that night."
10 Is there any reason to believe any of that is
11 untrue?
12 A. Well, I have known both the people for quite a long time
13 and, you know, I could have been with them down the town
14 maybe 20 times, but, you know, being -- what night, I'm
15 not sure if it was that night.
16 Q. What reason would you have had for putting that in
17 a statement in 2001 if it wasn't accurate?
18 A. Maybe that's what I thought had happened. I don't know.
19 Q. Then if we look at page [70990], this is
20 a questionnaire.
21 Now, we know that at some point, either late 2000 or
22 early 2001, police were going round asking everybody
23 they thought was at Tracy McAlpine's house on the
24 morning of 27th April who they had seen there. This is
25 one of those questionnaires.
84
1 Do you remember being asked anything about that?
2 A. No.
3 Q. What this says is that -- if we look under the box:
4 "Can you outline your movements for the evening of
5 Saturday, 26th, early hours of Sunday, 27th April 1997?
6 Who was in your company?
7 "Statement attached."
8 So the best guess we have is that that's the
9 statement at [17308]. Therefore, this is dated or this
10 came about at the same time as January 2001. Can you
11 help us on that?
12 A. No.
13 Q. All right. Then, if we go to the bottom of the page,
14 there is a question:
15 "What time did you arrive?
16 "2.30-ish.
17 "Who did you arrive with?"
18 Over the page at [70991]:
19 "Christopher Henderson, I think."
20 Then, if we go down half a dozen lines:
21 "Do you recall Allister Hanvey at the party?"
22 Do you see that?
23 A. Yes, I can see it. I'm not sure.
24 Q. All right. Let me just show you this for a start:
25 "Do you recall Allister Hanvey at the party?", you
85
1 were asked. You said:
2 "Yes.
3 "When did he arrive?
4 "I'm not sure.
5 "Whose company was he in?
6 "Dean Forbes' ..."
7 That [blank] P46 is Stephen Sinnamon:
8 "... I think."
9 You were asked a lot more questions about that.
10 Then if you go over the page to [70992], can you see
11 just over halfway down there is Q21 on the left-hand
12 side?
13 A. Yes, I see it.
14 Q. "What time did you leave the party?
15 "5.00 am to 6.00 am. Unsure.
16 "Who did you leave with and where did you go?
17 "Christopher Henderson, Allister Hanvey."
18 So that's the set of answers you were giving then.
19 Now, again, were you trying to help the police?
20 A. No.
21 Q. Sorry?
22 A. No.
23 Q. You weren't trying to help the police?
24 A. No.
25 Q. Why were you saying these things?
86
1 A. Maybe that's what I thought had happened. I don't know.
2 Q. What's your recollection now of the events of the night
3 in the middle of town?
4 A. Not very good. I sort of know some parts, like, but
5 not ...
6 Q. Let's see what we can get out of it, shall we? Do you
7 remember a fight?
8 A. Yes. I remember something happening up from me, like.
9 Q. Do you remember who you were with?
10 A. I was standing in the doorway of Wellworths.
11 Q. Do you remember seeing anybody that you knew there?
12 A. No.
13 Q. Do you remember anybody on the ground, lying on the
14 ground?
15 A. I think so.
16 Q. One or two people?
17 A. I'm not sure. I thought one, and then one other time
18 I thought it was two. It's unclear, so it is.
19 Q. Do you remember a police Land Rover?
20 A. I think so.
21 Q. Do you remember where it was?
22 A. You see, where I was standing, I could have seen the
23 Land Rover before, because it's only like 100 metres
24 down the road. So I might have seen the Land Rover
25 earlier than before the fight started --
87
1 Q. All right.
2 A. -- and then I did see it over at the other side of the
3 road as well.
4 Q. One of the main things the Inquiry is concerned about is
5 whether the police got out of the Land Rover and helped
6 Robert Hamill.
7 Now, can you assist them about whether you saw
8 police out and about doing anything?
9 A. I'm unsure. I'm not sure if it was before or after, but
10 they were definitely at the other side of the road as
11 well.
12 Q. I'm sorry, they were definitely ...?
13 A. At the other side of the road.
14 Q. The other side of the road from what, from you or from
15 the Land Rover?
16 A. From where the incident happened.
17 Q. But at some point you saw police out and about?
18 A. Uh-huh.
19 Q. Out and about trying to stop people fighting, do you
20 think, or what?
21 A. I am not sure what they were doing.
22 Q. Were you left with any overall impression about police
23 activity? Did you, for example, leave thinking, "This
24 is something the police should have been wading in to
25 help", or, "This is something the police were doing
88
1 their best with"?
2 A. I didn't actually -- I had no thoughts on the matter.
3 I was quite out of it, like.
4 MR UNDERWOOD: That's all the questions I have. Thanks very
5 much. As I say, other people may have some more for
6 you.
7 Questions from MR WOLFE
8 MR WOLFE: You were asked, Mr McClure, by my learned friend,
9 "Were you trying to assist the police when you were
10 being asked various questions back in 1997?"
11 Can you remember your answer?
12 A. No.
13 Q. You told the Inquiry that you weren't trying to assist
14 the police.
15 A. No. You said my answer in 1997. Is that what you are
16 on about?
17 Q. Yes. Were you trying to assist the police then when you
18 were giving answers to questions?
19 A. No.
20 Q. Were you trying to obstruct the police?
21 A. I wasn't trying to do anything.
22 Q. What were you trying to do when you were answering the
23 questions?
24 A. Nothing, just trying to answer the question.
25 Q. Yes, you were trying to give as much information as you
89
1 could?
2 A. Correct.
3 Q. You realised that the police were carrying out
4 an investigation into a serious crime that had been
5 committed?
6 A. When? When was this?
7 Q. In 1997?
8 A. In 1997.
9 Q. Do you not remember 1997?
10 A. Not particularly, no.
11 Q. You do remember that an event happened in 1997 that led
12 to the death of a young man, don't you?
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Based on the documents that you have looked at, you must
15 remember that you spoke to the police.
16 A. I can't remember. I remember I spoke to the police
17 twice, been interviewed twice by the police, but I can't
18 remember exactly when.
19 Q. You gave them, both in 1997 and in 2001, all of the
20 information that you had in your memory about what
21 happened that night. Is that fair?
22 A. Well, like, maybe what I thought had happened. I don't
23 know. I tried to answer the questions that I was asked.
24 Q. Well, were you guessing on either of those occasions?
25 A. No, but on the night in question I had consumed quite
90
1 a lot of alcohol. So my mind isn't clear, so it's not.
2 Q. In 2001, when you gave police a statement, you seemed
3 quite confident that police were out and about on the
4 street trying to break up the fight. Isn't that right?
5 A. I'm unsure.
6 Q. You are unsure now?
7 A. I'm unsure.
8 Q. But in 2001, you provided a statement saying police were
9 out and about trying to break up the fight?
10 A. Yes. Well, as I said, I don't know if that was before
11 or after.
12 Q. Before or after what?
13 A. The incident.
14 Q. Right, but you are --
15 A. By the time I got up the town, yes, there was police out
16 and about, but I was a hundred metres down the road,
17 so ...
18 MR WOLFE: Thank you.
19 Questions from MR O'HARE
20 MR O'HARE: Perhaps page [17308] could be put up again,
21 please. If the bottom half could be highlighted,
22 please.
23 Mr McClure, you see three lines down -- Mr Underwood
24 asked you about this line:
25 "I saw the police at the fight. They appeared to be
91
1 breaking the fight up"?
2 A. Yes, I see it.
3 Q. That's what you told police when you were making that
4 statement on 23rd January 2001. Mr Underwood asked you,
5 "Do you remember whether the police officer suggested
6 that line to you?" and you said, "No, it wasn't
7 suggested to me".
8 A. Yes.
9 Q. Can we take it when you said that in your statement
10 that's what your recollection was in 2001?
11 A. Say that again, please.
12 Q. When you told the police in 2001, in January 2001, in
13 that statement, that was your recollection at the time
14 when you made that statement?
15 A. It must have been.
16 Q. It must have been. You weren't making that up, were
17 you, to the police?
18 A. Making what up?
19 Q. The contents of your statement.
20 A. No.
21 Q. Was that a truthful statement you were making to the
22 police?
23 A. It's what I -- visions that happened. I don't know.
24 Q. Well, if you could just go on down to the next
25 line then:
92
1 "I walked up towards the fight and saw one man lying
2 on the ground. He sounded as though he was having
3 an asthma attack. The police were giving him
4 attention."
5 A. I can remember somebody, yes, just lying on the ground.
6 Q. When you were making that statement, did you recall
7 someone who appeared to be having an asthma attack and
8 the police were giving him attention?
9 A. Yes, there was police in the close area, like, so there
10 was.
11 MR O'HARE: Thank you, Mr McClure.
12 MR McGRORY: I have no questions.
13 MR UNDERWOOD: Nothing arising. Thank you very much.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. You are free now to go
15 and catch your flight.
16 (The witness withdrew)
17 MR UNDERWOOD: Mr Keys, please.
18 SIR JOHN EVANS: Mr Underwood, do we need to change the
19 room?
20 THE CHAIRMAN: The witness is screened.
21 MR UNDERWOOD: I am so sorry.
22 THE CHAIRMAN: Do we need to retire while --
23 MR UNDERWOOD: If he is, I had forgotten that. He is. I am
24 so sorry. That's entirely my fault. Ten minutes then,
25 please.
93
1 (2.20 pm)
2 (A short break)
3 (2.30 pm)
4 MR UNDERWOOD: Sir, before I call Sergeant Keys, may
5 I mention something?
6 Some documents recently came into the possession of
7 the Inquiry from the Police Ombudsman's Service.
8 Certain of those have been made material. They include
9 a reference to which a witness is somewhat sensitive.
10 There is no impropriety about them having gone out.
11 I simply wanted to mention that the basis on which
12 those papers have gone out to anybody at the moment is
13 that they are for lawyers only. They are material, but
14 not core documents. It may well be that some use will
15 be made of them in the future.
16 Can I simply remind everybody through this medium
17 that they are, at the moment, for lawyers' eyes only?
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
19 MR UNDERWOOD: With that, may I call Sergeant Keys then,
20 please?
21 SERGEANT DONALD GEORGE KEYS (sworn)
22 Questions from MR UNDERWOOD
23 MR UNDERWOOD: Good afternoon, Mr Keys.
24 A. Good afternoon.
25 Q. My name is Underwood. I am Counsel to the Inquiry.
94
1 I have some questions for you to start with.
2 What are your full names, please?
3 A. Donald George Keys.
4 Q. Thank you. Can we have a look at a document that I hope
5 is your witness statement so we can identify what it is?
6 It should start on the screen at page [80595]. It runs
7 through fifteen pages. Perhaps you could just keep your
8 eyes on the screen while we scroll through the fifteen
9 of them, please.
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. Is that your witness statement?
12 A. That is, yes.
13 Q. Are the contents true?
14 A. They are.
15 Q. Thank you. I want to ask you some questions about some
16 of the paragraphs, if I may, starting with paragraph 24.
17 We find it on page [80600]. In that paragraph you
18 say -- this is in relation to the early part of the
19 investigation early on the morning of 27th April 1997:
20 "It was not normal practice to look at notebook
21 entries from those officers on duty as my priority was
22 to obtain evidence in the form of witness statements.
23 I decided that I would not personally take the officers'
24 statements. The reason that I chose not to do this was
25 based on my experience of giving evidence in
95
1 Northern Ireland. In some cases the legal profession
2 has alleged that detectives have taken statements from
3 officers and worded them to suit the particular
4 situation."
5 Now, I want to get the picture, if I can, about
6 normal practice and what happened here when you have
7 a group of uniformed officers who may have seen suspects
8 and who may be able to identify witnesses who are called
9 in to make statements.
10 First thing: does somebody debrief them?
11 A. Does somebody debrief them?
12 Q. Sorry. In 1997, would somebody have debriefed them?
13 A. That responsibility, in my recollection, is that the
14 duty sergeant or the duty inspector may well have
15 conducted that process with them.
16 Q. Right.
17 A. Personally speaking, I have never sat down and debriefed
18 an officer on a formal basis or recorded his statement
19 from him. I would have on occasions, yes, spoken to
20 officers to establish what evidence they may give.
21 Q. Fine. You talk there, as you did in your statement,
22 about your personal approach.
23 Was it commonplace for detectives to leave uniformed
24 officers to their own statements?
25 A. Yes.
96
1 Q. You mentioned that the duty sergeant may debrief or may
2 have debriefed in 1997.
3 What would have been the nature and extent of
4 a debriefing after the sort of incident we are talking
5 about here, normally?
6 A. In my experience, it varied. We all have different
7 abilities in how we go about our job. I suppose that's
8 reflected in the quality of information that you get.
9 That could be maybe perhaps notes left for you or, on
10 occasions, many occasions, statements.
11 Q. Okay. We have heard from another officer that where
12 a constable was left to his own devices to make his
13 statement, then it would be expected that an experienced
14 detective would go through the statement with that
15 officer afterwards to tease out whether there is any
16 more information to be gleaned.
17 What do you say about that?
18 A. Not my experience to have sat down with them on
19 a one-to-one and have gone through the statement.
20 I would have taken their statement and gone through
21 the statement, and if that statement had some glaring
22 omission in it or some feature or aspect in it that was
23 to me obvious that it should have been included, then
24 that matter could have been raised with the particular
25 officer afterwards.
97
1 Q. If, for example, an officer had seen somebody who could
2 be a very useful witness and they simply don't mention
3 that in their statement, so there is no glaring
4 omission, there is nothing that would be done about
5 that. Was that the position in 1997?
6 A. Sorry. Can I ask you to repeat that, please?
7 Q. Of course. Take this situation. A uniformed officer is
8 present at the scene of a crime. He sees someone there
9 he can identify who may be a very useful witness --
10 A. Yes.
11 Q. -- but in his statement he makes no mention of that
12 person. On a reading of it by a detective such as you
13 were then, you could not tell that he has missed
14 something important out.
15 That would be it, would it?
16 A. Yes, on the basis of what you have described to me, yes.
17 Q. In that situation then, is the only safeguard, apart
18 from the officer's ability and genuineness, the degree
19 of any debriefing that he might have received from his
20 duty sergeant?
21 A. It would assist and would certainly help to eliminate
22 that possibility, but I doubt if you could ever put your
23 hand on your heart and say that it would eliminate it
24 completely.
25 Q. The only safeguard against the officer missing it out
98
1 was the possibility that the sergeant would debrief. Is
2 that fair?
3 A. Yes, I would agree with that.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: To do that, he has to think, "There is
5 something missing here"?
6 A. Yes, he would have to have some reason to do that.
7 MR UNDERWOOD: Is that still the position?
8 A. I have retired two years now. I can give you the
9 position up until the date of my retirement in
10 June 2007.
11 The processes are vastly different now, in terms
12 of -- and I speak here in relation to witnesses
13 generally. We use a model called ABE, which is
14 Achieving Best Evidence. That is a recognised model
15 I believe throughout the United Kingdom. Within that
16 there are certain criteria set down, i.e. if a witness is
17 deemed to be vulnerable or significant and they are
18 vulnerable by age or perhaps intimidated, then their
19 evidence is often taken by way of videos.
20 Q. If I can just take you back to my example, imagine the
21 day before you retired you were faced with a position
22 where uniformed officers had been present at the scene
23 of a crime, that they were not debriefed by the duty
24 sergeant and they made statements which may or may not
25 have included everything they saw on the night.
99
1 Were there any other safeguards in place as at that
2 date that might have encouraged them to give more
3 detail?
4 A. Speaking from my own perspective -- and that's all I can
5 give you, my own experience over 31 years of policing --
6 Q. Please.
7 A. -- and that is, as I did in this particular instance,
8 say to officers, "I want you to make your own
9 statement". These officers are more than capable.
10 Every officer receives basic training, and, as part
11 of that basic training, the officer would have received
12 training in how to make a statement of evidence.
13 What I would have done as practice, and what I have
14 seen other officers do, is say to the person, "I want
15 you to make your statement out and include in that
16 statement the sequence of events. Include everything in
17 its natural running order. Where you can describe
18 people, give comprehensive descriptions, both physically
19 and of their clothing. If you can name anybody, include
20 the name and the role and the part that they played in
21 it".
22 Q. So that's what you would have done in 1997 in any event,
23 is it?
24 A. That's what I did do in 1997.
25 Q. Right. Again, you are fairly telling us you can only
100
1 give us your own personal experience.
2 In your own personal experience, did the situation
3 change by the time you retired or was that still the way
4 in which people were told to make their statements?
5 A. My role had changed. I was promoted a few years after
6 that and I moved into major investigation teams and
7 Crime Operations Department --
8 Q. Right.
9 A. -- and I wouldn't have had the same contact with
10 investigating officers.
11 Q. Fair enough. I will stop asking that question then.
12 To go back to 1997, though, you tell us that -- to
13 be fair, this is something that emerges further on in
14 your witness statement anyway -- you told these four
15 officers from the Land Rover the sort of thing you have
16 just been telling us about what they should put in their
17 statement.
18 That was true of all four of the Land Rover
19 officers, was it?
20 A. Not just the Land Rover crew. That was true of all the
21 uniformed officers that were available to me that
22 morning.
23 Q. And --
24 A. With the exception, sorry, if I can interrupt you, of
25 perhaps Constable Neill, who was maybe some time later
101
1 in that particular morning.
2 Q. He had further to travel, didn't he, so he arrived a bit
3 after the others?
4 A. I now know that, in fact, he was delayed for quite
5 a bit.
6 Q. Just to be clear about your evidence on what it was they
7 were told they needed to put in the statement, they were
8 told, were they, then, to put in names or any other
9 identifying features of anybody they saw at the scene?
10 A. Absolutely.
11 Q. Witnesses or suspects?
12 A. Absolutely.
13 Q. Thank you.
14 I want to move to sealing off the scene. I know
15 there is considerable controversy about this. The
16 position is this, isn't it: when you first visited the
17 scene for the first briefing you could get from the
18 uniformed officer who took you there, it wasn't
19 physically taped off?
20 A. That's correct.
21 Q. There were officers at the scene, though?
22 A. I have a recollection of an officer or two officers at
23 the scene whenever I went down.
24 Q. You later revisited with your Detective Chief Inspector,
25 who is the lady we are calling P39?
102
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. That's when the scene was taped off. Is that correct?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Are you happy, are you satisfied, that it was safe
5 enough not physically to seal it off when you first
6 visited?
7 A. I didn't have enough information in my own mind to
8 satisfy myself that I could have sealed it off
9 appropriately at that time.
10 I should add, if I may, and I am sure the Inquiry is
11 aware of this by now, that there were town barriers in
12 place in the town centre at that stage, and that there
13 was no vehicular access to the town except via
14 Edward Street. That's the street that the police
15 station is situated on, which is just off main street,
16 as it were.
17 Q. I think, to be fair, you tell us in your statement that
18 you gave orders to the officer or officers present not
19 to let people drive through the centre?
20 A. Yes, that is true.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: When you say you didn't have enough
22 information, does that mean you didn't actually know
23 just what was the scene?
24 A. From speaking -- it was Constable Cooke who accompanied
25 me to the scene, Mr Chairman. He had been an officer
103
1 who had responded to the incident. He could only take
2 me so far in terms of the information that I needed.
3 I didn't know where had this incident actually started.
4 I was aware that obviously the injured parties had came
5 from St Patrick's Hall, which is further on up
6 Thomas Street, but I didn't know the actual locus of the
7 start of it, but I knew at that stage that -- where it
8 had ended up or finished, as it were.
9 Q. Can I take you to paragraph 42 of your statement? It is
10 at page [80604]. You tell us there that you terminated
11 duty that night at 2130 and say:
12 "I do not think by that time I had received any
13 further update on Robert Hamill's condition. I also do
14 not believe that I had received Reserve
15 Constable Atkinson's statement."
16 You go on:
17 "I do not remember if I told the DCI P39 or DC McDowell
18 that his statement was outstanding. I could have
19 followed this up the next day, which was not unusual in
20 terms of policing."
21 There is a bit of confusion among witnesses about
22 whether Mr Atkinson completed his statement on the 27th
23 and put it in the CID pigeonhole, or whether, on the
24 28th, when Detective Sergeant Bradley asked him for the
25 statement, he was unable to produce it because he hadn't
104
1 finished it.
2 How clear are you about this?
3 A. Bearing in mind it is now 12 years ago, I am satisfied
4 that I definitely had not got his statement by the close
5 of play, as it were.
6 Q. You looked affronted when I mentioned the CID pigeonhole
7 and the possibility he put the statement in there. Why
8 is that?
9 A. The CID pigeonhole did exist, as with a number of other
10 ones. I mean, he would have been well aware that I was
11 on the prowl for the statements.
12 Q. So it wouldn't have been the place to put it?
13 A. I would have expected the statement to have been given
14 to the investigator, and that was me, and it was
15 well known that I was pressing for statements throughout
16 that day, and, in fact, I have a clear recollection of
17 him being in the CID office and being spoken to by me.
18 I am very clear about that.
19 Q. Spoken to by you. Therefore, able to give you the
20 statement if he had finished it, you mean?
21 A. That day.
22 Q. If we go to paragraph 46 now, at page [80605], I want to
23 move on to the CCTV tapes.
24 A. Yes.
25 Q. You are here dealing with particular tapes from the
105
1 Alliance & Leicester. You say:
2 "I viewed those two tapes back at the station. I do
3 not recall if anyone else was present when I viewed
4 them. The tapes were black; total darkness. There were
5 internal views, nothing on them, and no external views."
6 Can you clarify that for us? What, if anything, was
7 on those tapes?
8 A. I have to rely on the note I have made on the action
9 sheet and that says that there were no night scenes on
10 those tapes. There were no external cameras on that
11 building. There were a number of internal cameras on it
12 and those were the premises that my hat was hanging on
13 to give us a proactive lead into this investigation.
14 They were the key premises insofar as I was concerned.
15 Q. Because we have some evidence that in May
16 Detective Inspector Irwin spoke to two of
17 Robert Hamill's sisters and told them that the tapes --
18 some tapes -- showed the police Land Rover.
19 You are the one who viewed all the tapes, I think.
20 Is that right?
21 A. There were just two tapes that I took possession of,
22 yes, and viewed the other ones at Northern Bank.
23 Q. Are you clear that there was no police Land Rover on any
24 of those tapes?
25 A. Absolutely.
106
1 Q. Did you have any discussion with DI Irwin about this,
2 can you recall?
3 A. There would have been discussion in relation to the CCTV
4 in general, so there would, and what it contained or
5 didn't contain.
6 What that is now, I can't be specific about.
7 Q. Help me on this. See what you say to this possibility.
8 At the point at which you looked at or seized and looked
9 at tapes, no complaint had been made against the
10 Land Rover officers. Is that correct?
11 A. This was on the Monday following. This would have been
12 Monday, 28th April, and certainly I wasn't aware that
13 there was a complaint against police.
14 Q. So is it possible that what you were looking for was
15 people committing a crime rather than something which
16 might have showed where the police were?
17 A. I'm not just so sure it would have been. If it had
18 given us any chance at all, we would have taken tapes
19 and they would have been of relevance.
20 Q. What I am putting to you is this possibility just to see
21 what you think, that at the time you were looking for
22 evidence in the crime?
23 A. Yes.
24 Q. That if you had seen something which might now to us
25 seem to be relevant to whether the police got out of the
107
1 Land Rover, you could have thought it was irrelevant at
2 the time, and subsequently you persuaded yourself you
3 have seen nothing on there. Do you see what I am
4 getting at?
5 A. Yes.
6 Q. Would you like to comment on it?
7 A. As I say, I would have been inclined to probably see and
8 keep those tapes, if it had shown anything.
9 Q. There is one other matter I want to ask you about and it
10 is at page [80608] in your statement at paragraph 57.
11 This goes back to the scene:
12 "I did not fail to properly secure the scene. I was
13 not the first officer on duty. By the time I arrived
14 the scene was four hours old. When I came on duty
15 I took steps which ultimately led to securing the scene.
16 I expected the scene to have already been secured by the
17 time I arrived. I was faced with difficult
18 circumstances and I believe that I endeavoured to redeem
19 a situation which was beyond me in the first instance."
20 You there give the impression that this was
21 an overwhelmingly difficult or large problem for one
22 officer to be facing. Can you comment on that, explain
23 the point?
24 A. Yes, if I could, please. Firstly, my experience is
25 public order situations are where you have lots of
108
1 public disorder and you have a multiplicity of
2 individuals involved in that disorder. They are
3 inherently difficult investigations to conduct because
4 there is a lot of conflict arises in terms of evidence,
5 etc.
6 So by that nature, in itself they are difficult
7 investigations, because you are faced with the
8 possibility of identifying hopefully a large number of
9 witnesses and possible suspects and that means that for
10 one person that is a lot of work. That's a hell of
11 a lot of work for one detective to try to cope with.
12 Q. Would you have expected, therefore, to have had two or
13 three detectives called out immediately?
14 A. Yes, and in this case my colleague on that weekend,
15 Detective Constable McDowell, was called out, because
16 P39 and I had, to my recollection -- there wasn't a lot
17 of conversation needed, to be perfectly honest. We knew
18 the task that lay ahead and he was called in.
19 Q. Can you comment on this possibility, that the duty
20 sergeant or duty inspector should have called out the
21 detectives earlier?
22 A. Well, I can't answer for those individuals. I can only
23 assume and say that, had they had the appropriate
24 information at that time that they could form an opinion
25 based on that information, that then they would make
109
1 that decision. Is that clear?
2 Q. Yes. Let me tease some more out of it.
3 Assume this. Assume that as of 3 o'clock they had
4 restored order and they knew two men had been taken in
5 an ambulance, one of them on a stretcher, unconscious,
6 arising out of a significant public order matter. Would
7 you have expected detectives to have been called out
8 immediately then?
9 A. Yes.
10 Q. Would it have been normal for them to go straight to the
11 DCI rather than to call out the DC and expect you to
12 come along and call out back-up?
13 A. No. The normal practice was that you would contact the
14 on-call detective constable for that station. The
15 detective who would respond would then make
16 an assessment of a call-out of a senior officer after
17 that.
18 Q. If you had arrived before the four in the Land Rover had
19 been allowed to go home, would you have prevented them
20 from going home and make sure they committed themselves
21 to paper before they went home?
22 A. At that time, yes, because -- it has somewhat changed
23 now, I believe. This incident could be claimed as
24 a critical incident and there are guidelines and
25 policies surrounding critical incidents as to when or
110
1 when you should not interview people involved in that.
2 But I took the decision I wanted that evidence, and
3 if it meant getting them out of bed again, well, so be
4 it. I wanted that evidence.
5 Q. So had you been called out at 3 o'clock and had you
6 managed to get there before the officers had been
7 allowed to go home, you would have got the statements
8 off them before they ended their shift?
9 A. Yes, and I have to say I would have dealt with it in the
10 same manner as I dealt with it when I did recall them.
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Were you the on-call detective?
12 A. I was, Mr Chairman.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: You say you really should have been called
14 out sooner?
15 A. It's hard to answer for the duty sergeant or the duty
16 inspector at that particular time what they knew or
17 didn't know, but had they have known what has been
18 suggested to me, I would have expected perhaps a call
19 slightly earlier. It was, I believe, about 4.40, or
20 4.45 in the morning when I got telephoned.
21 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes. Thank you.
22 MR UNDERWOOD: Thank you very much, Mr Keys. Those are the
23 questions I have for you. Other people may have some
24 more.
25 MR WOLFE: No questions, sir.
111
1 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes, Mr McGrory?
2 Questions from MR McGRORY
3 MR McGRORY: I do have some questions.
4 With the Chairman's leave, Mr Keys, I am Mr McGrory.
5 I want to ask you some questions on behalf of the Hamill
6 family.
7 A. I am familiar with who you are.
8 Q. I know you are.
9 I will maybe begin with what I regard as the most
10 difficult issue with your evidence, and that is the
11 CCTV. This is an issue that has caused great stress and
12 concern to the Hamill family over the years --
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. -- because I think, as you probably know, they made
15 representations to Mr Irwin fairly quickly after the
16 incident as to what was the outcome of any enquiries in
17 respect of CCTV in the area.
18 Were you aware of that?
19 A. No.
20 Q. They were told that there was nothing, as you say, of
21 evidential value, but they were very disappointed that
22 the material hadn't been retained in order for further
23 investigations of that.
24 Would you -- I know that doing your very best you
25 viewed the material and you took the view that what you
112
1 saw wasn't of evidential value in respect of what you
2 knew of events.
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. That was your judgment when you looked at the material?
5 A. There was nothing of any value to that inquiry on them.
6 Q. Let's just deal perhaps specifically with the
7 Alliance & Leicester footage, because you have said in
8 your statement to the Inquiry that these tapes were, in
9 fact, blank. They were black?
10 A. I think if I can just refer maybe to the action sheet,
11 I think the action sheet --
12 Q. I have the action sheet here. It is [09901], is it? Is
13 that the action sheet to which you refer?
14 A. Yes, it is indeed.
15 Q. Perhaps you could tell us what you have to say about
16 that.
17 A. Yes. I see that the two tapes taken from the
18 Alliance & Leicester were both viewed and they showed no
19 night scenes.
20 Q. Can you elaborate on that just a little bit? I mean, is
21 it the case that there were day scenes over the weekend
22 but no night scenes?
23 A. Yes. I was absolutely satisfied that the tapes that
24 I had got from Monica O'Reilly did, in fact, cover the
25 relevant period of time that I was interested in and
113
1 that there were day scenes on it but there were
2 definitely no night scenes on those tapes.
3 Q. She has given evidence to say it was her understanding
4 that the tape machine was set up to tape throughout the
5 weekend from Friday evening to Monday morning, that
6 there was a sort of a longer tape or that the timing on
7 the machine was set up in such a way to cover night and
8 day.
9 A. That's right. The systems do vary and they have that
10 facility and capability, but I can assure you that there
11 was nothing, there was absolutely nothing, on those two
12 tapes.
13 Q. It was her evidence that she can't understand that,
14 because the purpose of having the tapes running from
15 Friday night to Monday morning was to help the building
16 society if there had been an incident possibly during
17 the night.
18 A. Can I just say, perhaps, that I have conducted very
19 extensive CCTV trawls and enquiries and supervised
20 those. It would amaze you just when people say that
21 they have CCTV, the system is perhaps not even
22 recording, it is not switched on, it has broken down,
23 this type of thing.
24 People are not acutely aware of perhaps their
25 systems as they should be.
114
1 Q. You wouldn't have said to her when you gave the tapes
2 back, "You know, there are no night scenes on that"?
3 A. I can't be specific with you, Mr McGrory, now at this
4 stage, because of the length of time that has passed.
5 Q. Can I ask you just about a couple of the other premises
6 that you looked at out of this document?
7 The First Trust Bank didn't record?
8 A. That's correct.
9 Q. So there was nothing to look at in the First Trust?
10 A. That's correct.
11 Q. But the Northern Bank in High Street, it did record, and
12 you viewed those tapes on their premises.
13 A. Yes.
14 Q. Would that not have taken quite some time?
15 A. No. They had a facility to do that that allowed us to
16 view the -- the opportunity to view that. In fact, they
17 had a private area away from the public area which we
18 could go and do that.
19 Q. So you used that facility?
20 A. Yes, absolutely.
21 Q. But they did show a night scene or early morning scene,
22 for example?
23 A. Early morning scene, yes.
24 Q. Was there a night scene there?
25 A. That's what I'm speaking of.
115
1 Q. During the 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock?
2 A. The relevant time, yes.
3 Q. Would you have watched right through the six, seven
4 hours to breakfast time?
5 A. No, no, not six, seven hours, no.
6 Q. You would have watched an hour or two?
7 A. Yes. I can't -- I don't have a record of the exact
8 period of time, but it was certainly over the relevant
9 period of time.
10 Q. It would appear that the view that the Northern Bank
11 camera had was really of the footpath around the ATM
12 machine?
13 A. That's correct.
14 Q. But if someone had, say, used the ATM machine or walked
15 past the ATM machine, would you have regarded that as
16 a relevant observation to justify the keeping of the
17 tape?
18 A. It's hard to say.
19 Q. You see, I know that you were probably looking for some
20 evidence that you would have thought was directly
21 related to around 1.00 am to 2.00 am.
22 A. To 2.00 am, yes.
23 Q. The problem is that even -- would you accept that from
24 an investigative point of view, even somebody walking
25 along the footpath at any time in the hours after the
116
1 incident could have had potential relevance to the
2 investigation?
3 A. Well, I was satisfied from having looked at the tapes
4 that there was nothing of evidential value or of any
5 value to me as an investigator.
6 Q. Yes, but you can't tell us that nobody walked past.
7 A. I don't have that record now. I don't have that
8 recollection.
9 Q. It is just -- I want to make it clear. I am not
10 necessarily blaming you for this, but let me give you
11 an example in this case of how somebody using the ATM
12 machine or walking past could have been of very
13 significant evidential value.
14 For example, there is a big issue about what one of
15 those who is suspected of being heavily involved in the
16 murder, Allister Hanvey, was wearing --
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. -- whether or not he was wearing a particular type of
19 jacket. He actually used the First Trust ATM machine,
20 it would seem, at 8.00 am or thereabouts that morning.
21 Unfortunately, the First Trust didn't even keep
22 tapes, but, for example, had there been on the tape
23 Allister Hanvey using the ATM machine, that would
24 subsequently have turned out to have been of great value
25 to those investigating the murder.
117
1 Do you understand what I am saying to you?
2 A. Yes.
3 Q. Do you understand that something which might seem
4 insignificant on the Monday morning could turn out to be
5 very significant a few days later?
6 A. Yes, but in the scenario that you have described to me,
7 Mr McGrory, the First Trust Bank is further on up the
8 street.
9 Q. Yes. I don't think it really matters particularly how
10 close it was to the incident where Mr Hamill was
11 injured. That's not really the issue.
12 The issue is that there were CCTV cameras in the
13 centre of Portadown that did tape during the course of
14 the night.
15 I am accepting what you say about the
16 Alliance & Leicester, but there were others that did
17 tape during the course of the night and these could have
18 been of significant evidential value.
19 What I am suggesting to you is that they should have
20 been kept.
21 A. I appreciate the point that you make. I can tell you
22 that there was nothing of value in it and, on the point
23 of keeping tapes, can I tell the Inquiry that it wasn't
24 policy in 1997 to do so.
25 Q. Well, exactly. I think you have said in your statement
118
1 that you were a detective constable at the time --
2 A. That's correct.
3 Q. -- and that you saw your role as somebody whose purpose
4 it was to carry out actions that were directed by
5 others?
6 A. Yes. In this instance here, I suppose it is graphically
7 demonstrated as to what my role was.
8 Q. You seem to have been sort of thrown into the deep end
9 here. Isn't that right? In fact, you did more than
10 carry out actions suggested by others. You actually did
11 take certain initiatives.
12 A. I responded to the telephone call, and I have to say
13 I took this incident seriously at the start, and, as
14 a result of the information that I got and -- I mean,
15 I very quickly realised the gravity of what was afoot
16 and initiated the early stages of an investigation.
17 Q. But on the Monday morning when you went in and had
18 a briefing with some quite senior officers, including
19 a chief inspector, on the morning of the 29th -- 28th --
20 A. I think that Monday morning, that was -- as in any other
21 morning, you would have an office briefing. Now, there
22 is no doubt that the events of the weekend were
23 a prominent part of that and other matters that were
24 arising within our subdivision, and, indeed, maybe the
25 division, and, indeed, throughout the rest of the
119
1 province were -- they were matters that would have been
2 generically discussed at any briefing.
3 Q. Indeed, but it was after that meeting that you went off
4 to see what you could get from the CCTV cameras?
5 A. That was one of the enquiries that I had to make that
6 was of importance. I think that -- if I may refer to my
7 notebook entry perhaps, I could perhaps give you further
8 clarification on what I actually did.
9 Q. I am not asking you to go that far.
10 What I really just want to ask you is that nobody at
11 that meeting said to you, "Constable Bradley (sic), you
12 are to go out and look at all the CCTV footage and we
13 want you to look beyond the one hour of the incident.
14 We want you to look for anybody and keep this material"?
15 A. Not in those terms, but I was acutely aware I had to go
16 and conduct the CCTV trawl.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr McGrory, I am not quite clear. Are you
18 suggesting that there were more premises whose tapes he
19 should have seen? Because you asked a question which
20 perhaps hinted that that was what you were saying.
21 MR McGRORY: Well, my first position was of those that he
22 had seen, they should have been retained and perhaps
23 more investigation done, but, indeed, perhaps there
24 were --
25 THE CHAIRMAN: Are you suggesting there were other premises
120
1 whose tapes he should have examined? If you are, you
2 will no doubt want to tell him which.
3 MR McGRORY: Yes. The Queen's Bar, for example.
4 THE CHAIRMAN: He said he looked at those. It doesn't cover
5 the relevant scene.
6 MR McGRORY: Yes, but that raises another issue: what scene
7 does the Queen's Bar cover?
8 A. My recollection is that the camera looked up
9 Thomas Street away from the scene. It was of no benefit
10 to me in terms of the main street.
11 Q. As far as you knew at the time, of course.
12 But, of course, if we were to have CCTV footage of
13 Thomas Street now, we would be very keen to see it.
14 A. You could say that about any Inquiry, with respect.
15 Q. Exactly. I am simply trying to ascertain the parameters
16 of your instructions. I am not going to take the matter
17 any further, sir.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Very well.
19 MR McGRORY: Can I move on to a different subject
20 altogether?
21 When the lady who goes by the name E came into the
22 station -- you refer to it at paragraph 31 of your
23 statement, which is at page [80602]:
24 "It was the afternoon before E arrived at the
25 station..."
121
1 She was due to come at 11 o'clock. She did not come
2 until later.
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. She brought a certain politician with her?
5 A. She did indeed.
6 Q. I am going to mention the name of that politician.
7 A. I won't either.
8 Q. I am going to.
9 A. Are you?
10 Q. Oh, yes, because I have a point to make about this.
11 That was a very well-known lady called xxxxxxxxxx.
12
13 A. That's correct.
14 Q. I think you said she was Minister for Agriculture at the
15 time, but, in fact, we hadn't had the Anglo-Irish
16 agreement or the Good Friday Agreement yet, so she
17 didn't become the Minister for Agriculture for another
18 couple of years.
19 A. I will take your word for that.
20 Q. But in any event, this was a very highly respected
21 politician in the Lurgan/Portadown area.
22 A. That is correct.
23 Q. Indeed, she was attached to the Social Democratic and
24 Labour party.
25 A. That's correct.
122
1 Q. She was a lady who would have been very forthright in
2 her own condemnation of violence over the years --
3 A. Absolutely.
4 Q. -- and didn't hold back in terms of her condemnation of
5 Nationalist or Republican violence either.
6 A. That is correct. She was a very direct -- a very
7 prominent lady and she played a prominent role in all
8 the difficulties surrounding Drumcree.
9 Q. But she was a lady who would not in any way be known as
10 a police basher, if you know what I mean? For the sake
11 of it, have I asked a question too many?
12 A. I don't know whether she has a record for assault on
13 police or not.
14 Q. I think you have my point anyway.
15 A. I have, yes.
16 Q. It is clear from what you say there that already within
17 obviously the Nationalist community there was a great
18 deal of suspicion and tension building about what had
19 happened here and whether or not the police had perhaps
20 conducted themselves properly?
21 A. Yes. There is no doubt about that. It was a source of
22 great contention.
23 Q. Clearly E felt that she needed to have someone like
24 Mrs xxxxxxxxxx with her in order to perhaps assert herself
25 or ensure that the matter was being properly looked
123
1 into?
2 A. Yes. I have absolutely no difficulty with any community
3 figure coming to the police station. By all means, it
4 is to be encouraged if they can bring forward witnesses
5 and the witnesses are reassured. Absolutely no
6 difficulty in that.
7 What I couldn't allow was that individual to sit in
8 on a witness interview, and that was one thing that
9 I was quite firm about actually. We had a frank
10 discussion about that and she was happy to remain in the
11 public area whilst we did our interview.
12 Q. Indeed. Indeed. One final issue just I want to clarify
13 with you. That's at paragraph 54 of your statement,
14 which is at [80607]. You mention there that on 9th May
15 you went to the D family home and that members of the
16 Hamill family were there.
17 Now this is the day after -- sorry. I will give you
18 a chance to look at that.
19 A. Yes. Okay.
20 Q. This is the day after Robert Hamill died, Mr Keys. In
21 fact, the D family home is not the Hamill family home.
22 I am not going to mention the name of that family,
23 because the members of it have anonymity, but would you
24 accept that perhaps you are getting mixed up there --
25 A. Yes.
124
1 Q. -- between the Hamill family and that other family?
2 A. I certainly would, yes.
3 Q. Thank you. There is one more matter, sorry.
4 In terms of SOCO, SOCO didn't come on the scene
5 until at least, I think, 8 o'clock in the morning?
6 A. It wasn't there until 9.00 about. I think it was 9.00.
7 I think I rang him at perhaps 8 o'clock or thereabouts.
8 Q. It is some time after that that he gets there. We have
9 other evidence about this, but there was the facility to
10 bring SOCO out during the night, was there not?
11 THE CHAIRMAN: Well, we have been told about this facility.
12 SOCO was not called out until 8 o'clock.
13 MR McGRORY: No. I will leave it at that, sir. Thank you.
14 Questions from MS DINSMORE
15 MS DINSMORE: Good afternoon, Mr Keys. My name is Dinsmore.
16 I appear on behalf of Mr and Mrs Atkinson.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. Now, there is just one point I want to explore a little
19 with you arising out of some comments which you made to
20 Mr Underwood.
21 You have told the Inquiry today, when Mr Underwood
22 asked you about the receipt of the statements, you are,
23 "satisfied that I definitely did not get his", by that
24 Mr Atkinson's, "statement until the close of play, as it
25 were". We find that at page 106, lines 3 onwards of the
125
1 transcript.
2 Can I ask: you recall being interviewed by
3 Detective Jackson. Isn't that right
4 A. Yes, that's right.
5 Q. That was some very considerable time ago in July of
6 2001.
7 A. Yes, indeed.
8 Q. And a time much more proximate indeed to today -- to the
9 incident, 2001 from 1997. There was a time gap there of
10 four years, whereas now we are talking about eight years
11 later.
12 A. Eight years.
13 Q. So let's just see what your recall was when you were
14 talking to Detective Jackson. It we could call up
15 page [10218], please, I wonder if you could just be good
16 enough to highlight the final paragraph on that page.
17 You can see your answer there when you were asked
18 about the debriefing and such matters, and you said:
19 "From recollection, the majority of the statements
20 were made that day before police terminated duty.
21 I have some doubt in my mind regarding Reserve
22 Constable Atkinson's statement. This has already been covered
23 in DC K's enquiry."
24 So your state of thinking about Reserve
25 Constable Atkinson's statement was you had doubt at that stage.
126
1 You weren't certain like you are today.
2 Could we also then look at page [10225], please?
3 THE CHAIRMAN: Has the date on Mr Atkinson's statement been
4 checked?
5 MS DINSMORE: The date on Mr Atkinson's statement is
6 27th April.
7 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
8 MS DINSMORE: We will have the statement. It is, yes, sir.
9 MR UNDERWOOD: I think we only have a HOLMES copy. I don't
10 think we have the original manuscript version.
11 MS DINSMORE: I will have Mr Mallon obtain that, but
12 certainly my understanding -- it was the HOLMES copy
13 I was working on -- was 27th April. I will revisit that
14 in a moment.
15 Just so that we know what -- if we go to [10225],
16 and if we can go halfway down that page, paragraph 6:
17 "At recollection, I believe I had Constable Neill,
18 Reserve Constable Cornett, P40. I'm not sure about
19 Reserve Constable Atkinson. At recollection, I also had the
20 statements from the night duty crew ..."
21 Again, that was a state of uncertainty that you had
22 in relation to Reserve Constable Atkinson's statement?
23 A. At that time, yes.
24 Q. At that time. Now, have you had the benefit then of
25 looking at the enquiries which were made by your
127
1 colleague, K, the enquiries which have been made by K in
2 relation to the obtaining of what happened in relation
3 to the obtaining of the statements by -- from other
4 officers and when you were present?
5 I am referring in this regard to P40 and Neill?
6 Have you had a chance to look at any of that?
7 A. Of K's investigation?
8 Q. Yes. Have you seen the note made by K in relation to --
9 sorry.
10 A. I am sorry. I am confused here.
11 Q. Well, if we could just call up [11116], it is a copy
12 journal entry in relation to K.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: Do we know it is K's journal entry?
14 MS DINSMORE: It is K's journal entry.
15 THE CHAIRMAN: I am not asking you for a name, but do you
16 know who is meant by K?
17 A. Yes, I do, Mr Chairman.
18 MS DINSMORE: Sorry. I apologise. I think my friend has
19 realised that perhaps there was a little lack of clarity
20 about -- are you clear now who K is?
21 A. Yes, I am.
22 Q. Thank you. I am obliged, Mr Chairman.
23 So if we look at the copy journal entry, you will
24 see there that there was a note taken in relation to
25 a discussion which he had with P40.
128
1 A. Yes.
2 Q. If I could just take you to [11116] --
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. -- and if we could just box the last third of that page,
5 you will see that:
6 "P40 states that when he got into the office he
7 recalled seeing Reserve Constable Cornett and
8 [yourself]."
9 That would accord with your recall. Isn't that
10 right?
11 A. Let me just read this, if you would, please.
12 Q. Yes, certainly.
13 A. Yes, okay. Thank you.
14 Q. Does that aid your recall at all in that, first of all,
15 would you agree that you were there and that he is right
16 when he believes that Reserve Constable Atkinson was
17 there and that he arrived shortly afterwards?
18 A. He is right in that regard.
19 Q. He is right on that. Okay.
20 Is he right when he says Constable Neill did not
21 arrive in until much later in the morning?
22 A. That is correct.
23 Q. Is he right when he says you handed out the witness
24 statement forms.
25 A. That is correct.
129
1 Q. Is he right that he wrote his statement when he was
2 sitting in the office?
3 A. Yes.
4 Q. Now, he goes on to say that Reserve Constable Atkinson
5 went to another corner of the office and made his
6 statement. Now, is he wrong about that?
7 A. Yes, he is.
8 Q. What is your recall then, please.
9 A. My recollection is that he started his statement that
10 particular day, hence the reason it is dated 27th April,
11 but that statement was not completed or did not come
12 into my possession on that date.
13 Q. Well, if we can just explore -- we are agreeable, are we
14 not --
15 THE CHAIRMAN: Mrs Dinsmore, you will not have forgotten
16 that was at one stage Mr Atkinson's evidence to the
17 Inquiry. He also said he had completed his statement
18 and put it in the CID pigeonhole. So he said two
19 conflicting things.
20 MS DINSMORE: Well, I am just going to explore the confusion
21 here.
22 A. I think you will find, if you look at the notebook entry
23 of Reserve Constable Atkinson for that day, he will have
24 indicated in that entry that I debriefed him prior to
25 him going off duty at 0415 hours.
130
1 Q. Yes.
2 A. I was in my bed at that time.
3 Q. Now, what I -- but you don't leave that day until after
4 9 o'clock in the evening later on. Is that right?
5 A. 9 o'clock that night I terminated, yes.
6 Q. You had got all statements by then?
7 A. No, I had not got all statements by then.
8 Q. Tell me, what is the CID pigeonhole for?
9 A. Leaving post, various administrative matters in.
10 Q. Would statements ever be left in a CID pigeonhole?
11 A. They can on occasions, yes.
12 Q. Do you recall Constable [Atkinson] arriving? I apologise. Do
13 you recall Constable Neill arriving?
14 A. Neill arriving?
15 Q. Yes.
16 A. I don't have a clear recollection of that.
17 Q. Well, do you have any recall about when -- had Neill
18 arrived after Reserve Constable Atkinson had left?
19 A. I can't be specific about the times that various
20 individuals came and went, because P39 and I were --
21 after we left the scene, we -- I believe I came back to
22 the office and, at that stage then, SOCO was called out,
23 etc, and then we went to look for the clothes.
24 So there was a gap in time as to -- that I wasn't
25 there in the station.
131
1 Q. Did you have any discussions with Reserve
2 Constable Neill in relation to Reserve
3 Constable Atkinson's phone call with him?
4 A. Absolutely not.
5 Q. You had not. So it is not fair to ask you about it?
6 A. I had absolutely no knowledge of that.
7 Q. So the copy journal entry from your colleague, K, which
8 relates to what Neill has said about that, that isn't
9 something you can help us with at all. That will be
10 a matter for K?
11 A. Exactly.
12 MS DINSMORE: Thank you.
13 A. Thank you.
14 Questions from MR O'CONNOR
15 MR O'CONNOR: I appear for Inspector McCrum. A scenario was
16 put to you by Mr Underwood where it was known that
17 morning at 3.00 am that the matter was serious, and then
18 it was suggested -- you were asked if you would have
19 expected to be called before the time you were and
20 I think your answer was yes, in those circumstances.
21 Your evidence I think was you were called 4.40, 4.45.
22 A. Yes, that's correct.
23 Q. If Inspector McCrum was away in Lurgan and Banbridge
24 until 4 o'clock, he came back to the station, he phoned
25 Craigavon Hospital to ascertain the position with
132
1 Mr Hamill, he had a conversation with the doctor, then
2 he acquainted himself with everything else that had gone
3 on and then you were phoned at 4.40 or 4.45, would you
4 have any criticism of that timescale?
5 A. No, because in the scenario you have outlined or that
6 was put to me by Counsel to the Inquiry, if he had known
7 all the facts at 3 o'clock, then I would have expected
8 to have been called, but, no, not in those
9 circumstances.
10 THE CHAIRMAN: I think, Mr O'Connor, you omitted something
11 from the timetable. That was that Mr McCrum actually
12 went to the scene himself.
13 MR O'CONNOR: In that time.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: You see, you are going through an account of
15 Mr McCrum's movements to say, "Is there anything in that
16 account you can criticise?"
17 It seems to me if you are going to go through his
18 movements and say, "Is there anything there to
19 criticise?" on this particular point it should be made
20 clear to this witness that Mr McCrum himself attended
21 the scene.
22 MR O'CONNOR: My understanding is that was earlier on in the
23 evening, but not between 4 o'clock and 4.45,
24 Mr Chairman. He was at the scene earlier.
25 THE CHAIRMAN: I am not quite sure what that matters.
133
1 Mr McCrum had seen the scene. He had seen the number of
2 people involved and the question is whether that might
3 have called for some earlier action on his part. That's
4 all.
5 MR O'CONNOR: Yes.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
7 MR O'CONNOR: I am not sure what way to follow that with
8 a question, Mr Chairman.
9 THE CHAIRMAN: It is a matter for you. You are asking the
10 questions. If you are going to put a scenario, at least
11 it needs to be a complete scenario. That's all.
12 MR O'CONNOR: If Inspector McCrum made the decision that
13 when he returned at 4 o'clock it was at that stage that
14 the seriousness of the matter became apparent, i.e. he had
15 spoken to the hospital doctor, he was told on the phone
16 that Mr Hamill had serious head injuries and he had been
17 transferred to the Royal Hospital, and it was at that
18 stage that he made the decision, "This is a serious
19 incident and I need to get CID involved", again, if that
20 was the situation, have you any criticism of the
21 timescale then that it took him in those 40 or
22 45 minutes, that length of time it took him to phone you
23 or was that reasonable?
24 A. No, I would say that is reasonable in the scenario you
25 have put to me.
134
1 Q. Thank you. Now, just a couple of other minor matters.
2 It wasn't then for Inspector McCrum to phone any CID
3 man more senior than you, because you were the CID
4 officer on call?
5 A. (Witness nods).
6 Q. If you decided it was serious enough to involve more
7 senior persons, that was your call?
8 A. I took the decision and I have no regrets about the
9 decision I took in relation to what I did. I was quite
10 prepared to do that.
11 Q. Is it fair to say that Inspector McCrum assisted you in
12 every way he should have in relation to assisting your
13 enquiries from the time he phoned you onward?
14 A. Yes.
15 Q. In your experience at that stage, was he a helpful duty
16 inspector?
17 A. Yes, he certainly was, yes.
18 Q. Thank you. I think you are going to disagree with me on
19 the last point perhaps, unfortunately.
20 Inspector McCrum would say --
21 THE CHAIRMAN: It is catching, Mr O'Connor!
22 MR O'CONNOR: Inspector McCrum would say that it was his
23 decision -- now, perhaps having spoken to you on the
24 phone, but it was his decision to recall the Land Rover
25 crew for statements. You are disagreeing.
135
1 A. I am definitely going to disagree with you on that.
2 Can I say that when this issue arose, we were
3 singing from the same hymn sheet. He knew my --
4 Q. You both agreed that should be done?
5 A. Oh, yes.
6 MR O'CONNOR: Thank you.
7 MS DINSMORE: Mr Chairman, might I take the liberty of
8 referring your good self to the matter which I indicated
9 I would come back to. If we could call up [09683].
10 That is the statement of Mr Atkinson duly dated of
11 27th April 1997. I should say this witness probably
12 can't take it much further, because it is witnessed, in
13 fact, by Detective Bradley.
14 THE CHAIRMAN: Mr Bradley, yes.
15 MS DINSMORE: In any event, that is the document of which it
16 is unambiguous that the signature on it is 27th April.
17 THE CHAIRMAN: Yes.
18 MR ADAIR: I have no questions.
19 Further questions from MR UNDERWOOD
20 MR UNDERWOOD: Two matters.
21 Firstly on that point, if Mr Atkinson had given his
22 statement to you, would you have signed it as the
23 receiving officer?
24 A. Yes. There is provision in the witness statement, if
25 I could just draw your attention to it maybe on screen,
136
1 please.
2 Q. 09086 I think. Sorry, that's my fault.
3 THE CHAIRMAN: [09683] was Mr Atkinson's statement.
4 A. If I could draw your attention to the top paragraphs,
5 below the declaration which starts off:
6 "I declare that this statement", etc.
7 Below the date you get the name:
8 "Signature of member by whom statement was recorded
9 or received."
10 Q. You would have signed that, had that statement been
11 given to you on that date?
12 A. Absolutely.
13 Q. Thank you. One other matter.
14 That is that we know that Sergeant P89 and
15 Inspector McCrum were uniformed officers who were at the
16 scene.
17 A. Yes.
18 Q. They didn't give their statements until much later on in
19 May 1997. Do you know why it was they weren't caught
20 up, as it were, in the trawl of officers at the scene
21 who gave statements?
22 A. I don't. I mean, my initial approach to this was to
23 capture very quickly the officers on scene, as it were.
24 Those were the officers that were immediately available
25 to me.
137
1 Q. Did you talk to either the inspector or the sergeant on
2 the 27th or 28th?
3 A. Certainly the inspector I would have spoken to.
4 Q. Did they tell you they had been on the scene, do you
5 recall?
6 A. From recollection, Inspector McCrum, yes, because he had
7 deployed additional resources in the shape of the
8 Divisional Mobile Support Unit.
9 Q. Would you have expected a sergeant and an inspector to
10 have known the importance of giving statements fully
11 setting out what they had seen?
12 A. Yes, they do. Sometimes they don't, for various
13 reasons. Because they have quite a bit of
14 responsibility, they don't always have the opportunity
15 to provide them there and then.
16 Q. But they know the importance of it?
17 A. They do, yes.
18 MR UNDERWOOD: Good. Thank you very much. Sorry. Forgive
19 me. I have nothing else for Mr Keys.
20 THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, Mr Keys. You are free
21 now to go.
22 MR UNDERWOOD: Thank you very much for coming, Mr Keys.
23 (The witness withdrew)
24 MR UNDERWOOD: An issue has arisen over a witness we are due
25 to call tomorrow. Mr Adair has attempted to fill me in
138
1 as best we can -- not that he is a counsel basher!
2 I wonder if you might rise? It may well be that we
3 would need to air this matter before you in
4 a few minutes. I think we need to sort out what it is
5 we are falling out about, if anything.
6 THE CHAIRMAN: Now, other than you and Mr Adair, can
7 everyone else go away -- or at least if they know if
8 they have to stay.
9 MR UNDERWOOD: We will tell them if they can go away. The
10 trouble is this involves whether a serious witness
11 tomorrow is going to attend, so they will probably have
12 some interest in it.
13 THE CHAIRMAN: I see. Thank you.
14 (3.45 pm)
15 (Off-the-record discussion )
16 (4.10 pm)
17 (The hearing adjourned until 10.30 am tomorrow morning)
18
19 --ooOoo--
20
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24
25
139
1 I N D E X
2
3
MR LAWRENCE BRIAN MARSHALL (sworn) ............... 1
4 Questions from MR UNDERWOOD ............... 1
Questions from MR McKENNA ................. 21
5 Questions from MR EMMERSON ................ 35
Questions from MR O'CONNOR ................ 49
6 Questions from MR WAITE ................... 51
Further questions from MR UNDERWOOD ....... 52
7 Questions from THE CHAIRMAN ............... 53
Questions from SIR JOHN EVANS ............. 56
8
MISS COLETTE CHRISTINE QUINN (sworn) ............. 57
9 Questions from MR UNDERWOOD ............... 58
Questions from MR McKENNA ................. 73
10 Questions from MR O'CONNOR ................ 78
11 MR JASON McCLURE (sworn) ......................... 82
Questions from MR UNDERWOOD ............... 82
12 Questions from MR WOLFE ................... 89
Questions from MR O'HARE .................. 91
13
SERGEANT DONALD GEORGE KEYS (sworn) .............. 94
14 Questions from MR UNDERWOOD ............... 94
Questions from MR McGRORY ................. 112
15 Questions from MS DINSMORE ................ 125
Questions from MR O'CONNOR ................ 132
16 Further questions from MR UNDERWOOD ....... 136
17
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140
