ROBERT HAMILL INQUIRY

Day 54: 1^st September 2009

The Inquiry heard evidence from Mrs Tracey Hanvey, formerly known as Tracey Clarke [for the purposes of consistency, we are referring to this witness as Tracey Clarke] via video-link. 

Note:  Ms Clarke failed to appear to give evidence to the Inquiry in January 2009 and cited medical reasons for non-attendance.  This resulted in a breach of a notice to compel her to attend under section 21 of the Inquiries Act 2005.  The matter was referred to the High Court on 25^th March 2009 in an effort to compel her to give evidence under section 36 of the 2005 Act. 

At a hearing in the High Court on Tuesday 11^th August 2009, the Inquiry panel were granted access to Ms Clarke’s medical records.  A further hearing took place on Tuesday 25^th August as a result of which Ms Clarke agreed to give evidence.  An agreement was also reached which allowed a paragraph of a medical report from Ms Clarke’s doctor to be submitted into evidence for the purpose of inquiry proceedings. 

Mr Underwood QC, Inquiry Counsel, began by asking a number of questions which showed that other people became aware that Ms Clarke had made a statement to police shortly after she visited the police station on 10^th May 1997 and that they were annoyed with her.  These people appear to be from the Portadown area as the witness said that some were friends and others were not.  She said this made her feel as if she had done the wrong thing and she hated herself for making the statement. 

Ms Clarke told the Inquiry that she moved to Belfast and changed jobs.  She told the Inquiry that she felt terrible as she knew she had lied and that people she knew had been arrested as a result.  Allister Hanvey was the witness’s ex-boyfriend at the time of the attack and was one of those she accused of involvement in the murder of Robert Hamill.  They later married and had two children together but are now separated. 

Ms Clarke broke down and said it was hard to deal with the fact that she had put people in jail and that no-one will believe that she is now telling the truth.  In 1997, she named Allister Hanvey, Stacey Bridgett, Dean Forbes, ‘Muck’ [Mark Hobson] and Rory Robinson as being involved in the attack.  However, she told the inquiry that this was untrue.  She said that police had suggested these names to her and that she had agreed with these suggestions.

Ms Clarke could not explain how details such as her description of Michelle Jameson supporting a second man injured in the attack made its way into her statement.

In her statement, the witness also said that the police were doing nothing to stop what was happening [i.e.  the attack].  When Mr Underwood put this allegation to the witness she told the Inquiry that she could not remember saying this.

From a statement given by her mother and evidence given by her step-father, Jim Murray, it appears that Ms Clarke told them later on the 27^th that there was a fight and that Allister Hanvey had been involved in it.  When this was put to her by Mr Underwood, she told the Inquiry that this was correct but that she did not know why she had told them this.

Ms Clarke told the Inquiry that Allister Hanvey did not tell her about Reserve Constable Robert Atkinson calling him about destroying clothes as her 10^th May 1997 statement says.  She said that it was Andrea McKee (her aunt by marriage who was present during the interview) who had said this.

A section of her police statement from 10^th May refers to Allister Hanvey telling Ms Clarke that he had jumped on Robert Hamill’s head.  In her statement Ms Clarke went on to say that she commented that this is how the man [Robert Hamill] got the fractured skull but that Mr Hanvey’s reply was that the man did not have a fractured skull any more.  When Mr Underwood put this section of the statement to Ms Clarke during the hearing she said that she had made this up to get back at Allister Hanvey.

Mr Underwood asked Ms Clarke about a reference from other witnesses to her purchasing a silver jacket for Allister Hanvey in 1996 using a lay away system [deposit/payment system] in a shop called Paranoid.  The witness said that she had bought him many items but that she could not recall buying him the jacket described.  At a later stage during the hearing, Ms Dinsmore QC, representing former Reserve Constable Robert Atkinson and his wife Eleanor, put to the witness the possibility that she had purchased a blue Daniel Poole jacket.  The witness again did not answer definitively but said that she could have.

Ms Clarke told the Inquiry that she did not know at the time how her visit to the police station on 10^th May 1997 materialised but that she has since learned.  She referred to Andrea McKee meeting a police officer in a cemetery and that it was after this meeting that she was taken by Andrea McKee and her husband Michael to make her statement. 

Ms Clarke referred to pressure being put on her during her interview and Mr Underwood asked her to elaborate.  She alleged that police officers interviewing her had banged the table and had threatened to bang her mother’s door down and arrest her mother. 

Mr Underwood highlighted that the Inquiry has heard evidence from some officers that the police tried to help get Ms Clarke a job in the navy.  Ms Clarke told the Inquiry that she could not recall such help.

Mr Underwood also asked a number of questions about the meeting which Ms Clarke had with members of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in October 1997.  Ms Clarke said that she had told those present at the meeting what she had told the police in her 10^th May statement as she did not know that she could tell them the truth. 

Mr Underwood asked the witness if she knew that those who were named in her statement were in prison and if she did not think to say that her statement was untrue.  Ms Clarke confirmed that she knew those she named in the statement were imprisoned.  She told the inquiry: 1) that she just went along with what she had said previously; 2) that she did not have any legal advice; 3) that she wasn’t aware she could make the admission that what she had said was untrue; and 4) that as far as she was concerned she had told lies and there was nothing she could do about it.

Mr Underwood stated that the witness was aware that she could refuse to give evidence.  The witness responded by saying:

“They could force me to give evidence”.

In addition, Mr Underwood asked if the witness had received any advice from paramilitaries and the witness said she had not.  Mr Underwood continued this line of questioning and asked Ms Clarke about a particular loyalist paramilitary but the witness said she could not recall speaking with him:

“Q.  ‘Swinger Fulton’? You had a chat with him, didn't you?

A.  I don't recall it.

Q.  Really? You know who ‘Swinger Fulton’ was, don't you?

A.  Uh-huh.

Q.  You know you talked to him, didn't you?

A.  No, I don't remember talking to him.”

Mr Underwood presented an attendance note made by the Coroner, John Leckey,  in November 1999 which stated that Ms Clarke believed that if she was in any way involved in an inquest she would be in real danger from loyalist paramilitaries.  Ms Clarke told the Inquiry that she did not know that she could tell the Coroner that her statement was false.  She also said that the reason she feared loyalist paramilitaries was that she had given a false statement.

Mr Underwood later asked the witness to sign an authority for the Inquiry to have access to her medical records as she disputed records of a conversation with her psychiatrist.  The witness said she wanted to consult with her counsel first to be sure of what she was doing [no response was given during the hearing].

In response to questions from Mr Adair QC, who represents a number of individual police officers including those who conducted the 10^th May interview, Ms Clarke confirmed that she had began telling people [presumably in the area where she lived] that she had told her aunt and mother that Allister Hanvey had been involved in the attack before she made her police statement.

Ms Clarke told the Inquiry that she could not remember if she heard from others that Mr Hanvey was involved in the attack.  She could provide no reason for telling the police this lie but explained that she was in a bad stage in her life with her mother taking ill.  The witness said that she used drugs as well but never told anybody.

Mr Adair then focused his questions on her police interview on 10^th May 1997.  Whilst she had told the Inquiry earlier that day that she could not recall if it was either the male or female police officer present who had banged the table, in response to Mr Adair’s questions she said that it had been the male officer.  She said that this happened in the presence of her aunt Andrea McKee and the female police officer – neither of whom objected.

Mr Adair asked Ms Clarke if she had ever asked Allister Hanvey if he was involved in the fight.  Initially, the witness responded by saying that they did not discuss it.  Mr Adair repeated his question at which point Ms Clarke said that she had asked Mr Hanvey was he involved and said that Mr Hanvey replied that he was not.

In response to further questions from Mr Adair, Ms Clarke told the Inquiry that she believed she did not tell anyone of her allegations regarding the treatment she received during her interview in 1997 until she met with her solicitor in 2000, however she was unsure.

Mr Adair told Ms Clarke that the evidence the Inquiry has heard from the two interviewing officers is that they had treated her as a vulnerable witness and that no banging of the table had taken place.  He also asked Ms Clarke about the officers being concerned for her welfare, calling to her home and trying to get her a job.  The witness said she could not remember this.

The Inquiry Chairman, Sir Edwin Jowitt, asked the witness had she thought what the benefit would be to the police to have a witness make a statement they know to be false.  Ms Clarke said that the police would have someone convicted for the murder and that they would be seen to be doing their job.  The Chairman also asked Ms Clarke if it struck her as being difficult to use a witness who had been browbeaten into lying and how good a witness were they going to be.  Ms Clarke agreed that it would be difficult and that such a person would not be a good witness.

Mr McGrory QC, representing the family of Robert Hamill, highlighted that the witness was giving evidence via video link and could not see the family of Robert Hamill to look them in the eye when giving her evidence.  He asked Ms Clarke if this was why she was giving evidence via video link.  Ms Clarke said that one of Robert Hamill’s sisters had attacked her outside a restaurant and that she did not want to have to come [to the Inquiry] and see her or any of the family.  Mr McGrory put it to the witness that she was telling lies [in respect of her allegation and reason for giving evidence via video link].

Mr McGrory suggested to the witness that what she had told police officers in 1997 was the truth.  Ms Clarke said that it was not.  He referred to the statement of Timothy Jameson to police on 10^th May 1997 and highlighted that he had provided a similar account to that contained in her statement.  In response, Ms Clarke told the Inquiry that Timothy Jameson was in the police station giving his statement at the same time she was.  She alleged that the police officers were going back and forth between her interview and that of Timothy Jameson.  However, she could offer no reason as to why Timothy Jameson may have lied about Allister Hanvey being involved in the attack.

During questions from Mr McGrory, Ms Clarke confirmed that the first time she told anyone that her statement was a lie was after she sought advice from her solicitor Richard Monteith in 2000.

Ms Dinsmore QC, asked the witness if Allister Hanvey told her that Robert Atkinson had been good to him as he had called in at 8.00 am on the morning after the incident and told him to destroy his clothing [as per her 10^th May 1997 statement].  Ms Clarke said no.  Ms Dinsmore asked how the witness thought that this allegation had come to be in her statement and she replied, “Andrea McKee”.  In response to further questions she said that Andrea McKee was friendly with the Atkinsons and was with Tracey Clarke when she made her statement.

Ms Clarke confirmed when asked by Mr Daly, representing Andrea McKee, that her relationship with her aunt and uncle, Andrea and Michael McKee, had been good prior to this [the attack on Robert Hamill and her subsequent statement being made], and that amongst other things she stayed in their house frequently and had gone on holiday with them.  Mr Daly suggested that Andrea McKee had brought the witness to make her statement in a comforting role akin to that of an older sister.  However Ms Clarke said that Mrs McKee was a ‘Miss Know-It-All’ and that Andrea McKee had brought her to make the statement as she [McKee] had a story to tell as well.

Mr Daly emphasised that Ms Clarke is the only person saying that her aunt, Andrea McKee, suggested things to her during her police interview.  He asked if Andrea and Michel McKee, her parents and the police were in a conspiracy of poison against her.  Ms Clarke said no, that they all just talked about it freely and that it was all hearsay.

Additionally, Mr Daly asked if the witness was aware that her aunt was subsequently prosecuted for perverting the course of justice.  Ms Clarke said she had heard something about it but that she did not know a lot about it.  The chairman intervened and rephrased a question put by Mr Daly.  The Chairman asked Ms Clarke what Andrea McKee would have to gain by putting words into her [the witness’s] mouth and getting them into her [the witness’s] statement.  Ms Clarke said that Andrea McKee would have nothing to gain.

During the hearing, Dr McGleenan, representing Ms Clarke, had a document displayed containing the witness’s answers to a police questionnaire completed on 8^th May 1997 by Detective Constable McAteer. 

Note: Ms Clarke’s answers in this questionnaire are to the effect that she was returning from the Coach Inn, heard shouting and saw two persons lying on the ground in Market Street in Portadown.  The following question was asked within the questionnaire, “Did you see an assault in Market Street? If so, please give details.” The witness’s response was recorded as ‘no’.

Ms Clarke told the Inquiry that the account recorded in the questionnaire was accurate and truthful.  She confirmed that no one else was with her at the time, she was not under pressure and no one was suggesting names to her.

Ms Clarke also said she did not know former Reserve Constable McCaw who alleged he overheard her talking about events on 27^th April 1997 in the Tae Kwon Do club they both frequented.  She confirmed that she was not made aware by Andrea McKee that she [Mrs McKee] had discussed the tip-off allegation with RC McCaw and met Constable McAteer prior to taking her to be interviewed by police officers on 10^th May 1997.

Dr  McGleenan asked a series of questions about the manner in which the witness was taken for her interview on the 10^th May and what she had being doing before she went.  Ms Clarke’s responses showed that: 1) she believed she had to attend the interview and she did not volunteer; 2) that she had been working at her day job from 9 am to 5 pm and then went to work at an evening job until 11 pm; and 3) she was collected by Andrea and Michael McKee after 11pm and taken to her interview.  Ms Clarke was unable to recall how long her interview had taken, but she said that she was in the room all the time when Dr McGleenan asked if she was given any rest periods.

Ms Clarke also confirmed that there are essentially four components to her 10^th May statement: 1) a core truth from her 8^th May questionnaire responses; 2) names suggested by police officers; 3) gossip that she had heard at the time; and 4) information from Andrea McKee.

The chairman interjected and expressed concern that the manner in which questions were being asked was leading the witness and cautioned against this approach.

Before Ms Clarke withdrew, Mr Underwood highlighted a section of her 8^th May 1997 questionnaire where she recounted people in attendance at a party at Tracy McAlpine’s house on 27^th April 1997.  He drew the witness’s attention to the fact that she had said Allister Hanvey was present and then asked her if she was aware that he has since lied about that under oath [as he has told the Inquiry that he was not at Tracy McAlpine’s house].  Ms Clarke confirmed that she was not aware of this.

After the witness withdrew, Mr Underwood made an introduction to the next group of witnesses to be heard by the Inquiry.  He said that tapes of interviews that the Inquiry team held with former DCS Maynard McBurney [now deceased] would be played in the coming days and that transcripts of the interviews would also be made available.

Mr Underwood said that some may argue with regards to Mr McBurney’s investigative decisions that they were designed to protect Robert Atkinson; conversely he said that that ‘there is quite a lot to be said for Mr McBurney not doing that’.

He said that Mr McBurney had told the ICPC, DPP and the Chief Constable of the Atkinson tip-off allegation within days of the allegation being made by Tracey Clarke.

He highlighted that Complaints and Discipline officers who would be seized of the tip-off allegation were also investigating the complaint that officers neglected their duty and failed to get out of the Land Rover during the attack on Robert Hamill [the neglect complaint].

Also, Mr Underwood said that, contrary to what the witness Tracey Clarke told the Inquiry, Mr McBurney ‘plainly took steps to reassure her as a witness and keep her onside’ which is supported by P39.

Mr Underwood then turned to what could be said by some against Mr McBurney and the investigation:

1)      The tip-off allegation was treated as part of the neglect complaint – the Inquiry was starting to hear evidence from senior police officers that such an allegation was in essence an allegation that RC Atkinson was an accessory to murder and should have been dealt with as part of the murder investigation.  The Hamill family solicitor, Rosemary Nelson was never told of the tip-off allegation or that the neglect complaint investigation was expanded to include the tip-off allegation.

2)      The minimal search of Allister Hanvey’s home on 10^th May 1997.  One set of clothes was taken and there is no evidence that there was a search for more items or evidence of burning clothes.  DC McAteer’s evidence is that he was there to secure the arrest of Allister Hanvey; the search team members are of the opinion that he was there to tell them what to take and what not to take.  Mr Underwood said that there was as yet no credible reason as to why they stopped short.  Also he said that Mr McBurney may have been able to say that Mr Irwin was in charge of directing the search but that Mr Irwin will give evidence in due course.

3)      It is not clear how the ICPC became involved – whether it was as a result of a referral by the Chief Constable due to allegations of neglect, or as a result of the neglect complaint made by Rosemary Nelson.  Mr Underwood alluded to further difficulties in assessing this matter as Mr Murnaghan of the ICPC is also now deceased.

4)      Whilst Complaints and Discipline department usually waited for criminal investigations to take place before an investigation became a purely disciplinary matter, so as not to prejudice evidence or anyone involved, they did not caution RC Atkinson prior to his interview re the tip-off allegation.  Suspension while the matter was being investigated does not appear to have been discussed.  RC Atkinson had not been interviewed by the time the crime file was forwarded to the DPP.  Conversely, to serve Atkinson with a caution or suspend him may have made him aware that he was being investigated and Mr Underwood indicated that Mr McBurney could have perhaps helped with these issues had he lived to give evidence to the Panel.

5)      There was a delay of approximately 4 months from when telephone records for the Atkinson household were received and when RC Atkinson was interviewed about the tip-off allegation.

6)      DI Irwin accepted the statement of Andrea McKee in October 1997 without questioning her truthfulness, given that he knew her to be present during her niece’s interview in May of that year in which her niece provided a statement which contradicted her evidence.