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PLEASE NOTE:
This executive summary has been edited to protect the identity of certain persons in order to preserve their right to life and their right to a fair trial.
The full submission which it summarises is confidential for the same reasons.
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British Irish rights watch SUBMISSION TO THE ROBERT HAMILL INQUIRY
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
1. INTRODUCTION
On Sunday 27th April 1997, Robert Hamill and another young man were attacked by loyalists in Portadown as they walked home from a local dance. They were both kicked unconscious. Robert Hamill died of head injuries eleven days later without ever regaining consciousness. The reason for the attack was that the loyalists could tell from the direction he was walking that he was a Catholic. It was a purely sectarian murder.
Robert Hamill and his friends would never have risked walking past the mob that attacked them had it not been for the fact that an RUC (the former name of the Northern Ireland police) landrover was parked in the vicinity. The four armed officers inside the landrover, who could have dispersed the crowd with a single shot fired into the air if necessary, failed to come to their assistance. Another officer apprehended one of the alleged perpetrators but inexplicably let him go.
Their actions constituted gross dereliction of duty, but none of them has been prosecuted or disciplined. After the attack, the RUC put out a series of misleading press releases suggesting that there had been a mass fight between opposing factions and that the police themselves had come under attack. The RUC have never apologised to the family for their failure to protect Robert Hamill.
Six people were ultimately arrested for the murder, but only one stood trial. The evidence given against him by the RUC officers present at the time of the attack was so poor that he was acquitted of murder and only convicted of the much more minor offence of affray. Thanks to police inaction, incompetence, corruption and collusion, Robert Hamill lost his life and his murderers have evaded justice.
British Irish rights watch has been monitoring the case of Robert Hamill since 14th June 1997, when his sister Diane requested us to do so. We make this submission to the Inquiry established as a result of the recommendations of Judge Peter Cory in order to set out so much as is known to us of the facts in the case and to suggest potential lines of enquiry.
Robert Hamill’s case is emblematic of some of Northern Ireland’s deepest problems. It was sectarian in that he was murdered solely because he was a Catholic. There is a widespread public perception, shared by many objective observers, that the RUC officers, who were members of a police force that was at that time only 8% Catholic, viewed him as just another Catholic getting a kicking, for whom it was not worth getting out of their vehicle. The failure of the juryless Diplock courts to bring anyone to book for his murder came as no surprise to those observers. The corruption and collusion on the part of RUC officers involved in the case are part of a wider, very dark picture which is only beginning to come into focus as Northern Ireland struggles to emerge from thirty years of conflict. It is the tragedy and the disgrace of Robert Hamill’s death that he could have been anyone. His death was the result of institutionalised sectarianism that will only be eradicated if it is exposed and acknowledged and if painful lessons learned.
2. THE INQUIRY’S TERMS OF REFERENCE
The present Inquiry was established following the recommendations of Judge Peter Cory in October 2003. The terms of reference given to the Inquiry are, however, too narrow in scope. In particular, there is no mention of collusion, despite the fact that Judge Cory viewed his primary task as the examination of whether there was a case to answer that collusion may have occurred in the Hamill case.
British Irish rights watch believes that this important aspect of the case must be examined by the present Inquiry and urges it to seek an amendment to its terms of reference to include the word “collusion”. The Inquiry may alternatively wish to make a statement making it clear that it intends to interpret the terms of reference to include any act of collusion.
3. THE MURDER
4. THE RUC’S VERSION OF EVENTS
After the attack, the RUC put out a series of misleading press releases suggesting that there had been a battle between opposing factions and that the police themselves had come under attack. We believe that it is important to investigate whether the press releases were deliberately misleading, or whether, as the RUC claimed, they were simply the result of misperception and a lack of information at the time.
5. THE MURDER INVESTIGATION
Despite the fact that RUC officers had witnessed a serious assault, the area was not cordoned off until 7:27 am that morning and Scene of Crimes Officers did not arrive until eight hours after the assaults. Forensic samples were not collected until 10:00 am and blood samples were not tested at all. Those who participated in the attack were not detained, with the exception of the one who was held for ten minutes and then allowed to go free. Some RUC officers who witnessed the incident were allowed to go off duty without writing up their account of events. In addition, several of the key eyewitnesses to the attack reported that the police behaved in a hostile manner towards them, treating them more like suspects rather than witnesses. The Police Ombudsman was critical of the behaviour of the inspector in charge of the investigation and recommended that he be admonished, although he refused to accept any form of reprimand.
6. THE SUSPECTS
Six people were ultimately arrested for the murder, but only one stood trial. All of the suspects appear to have had loyalist paramilitary connections. No prosecution was ever launched against anyone for the simultaneous attack on Robert Hamill’s friend.
7. THE criminal proceedings
The evidence given against the one remaining suspect by the RUC officers present at the time of the attack was so poor that he was acquitted of murder and only convicted of the much more minor offence of affray. Only two of the four police officers in the landrover at the time of the attack testified at the trial. It seems that the RUC continued to allege that the murder was the consequence of a fight that broke out between two factions, rather than an unprovoked attack on four people by a gang of loyalists.
8. THE POST MORTEM AND INQUEST
Judge Cory commented on two aspects of the autopsy report, which he said raise questions that should be answered. First, there was no record of blood on the back and collar of Robert Hamill’s jacket ever having been tested. Secondly, while the blood staining of the back and collar of the jacket might have indicated an injury to the back of the head, there was no photograph of the back of the head taken at the autopsy.
Two witnesses have made statements which the Coroner considered vital to the holding of an inquest. However, these witnesses were too afraid to give evidence and eventually the Coroner decided not to convene an inquest as to do so without the evidence of these witnesses would result in “a seriously incomplete account of the circumstances of Mr. Hamill’s death”.
9. THE COMPLAINT AGAINST THE RUC
Before Robert Hamill died, his family’s solicitor lodged a complaint against the RUC for the failure of the officers in the police landrover to protect him. This complaint was investigated by the Independent Commission for Police Complaints, but this body relied upon RUC officers to carry out its investigation and the officer who headed the ICPC investigation was himself involved in the murder investigation. Unsurprisingly, this officer concluded that the four police officers inside the landrover did not neglect to perform their duties and should not be disciplined or prosecuted.
Evidence has emerged that one RUC officer who was present in the landrover at the time of the attack on Robert Hamill subsequently gave one of the murder suspects advice on how to dispose of any evidence that he was involved. The officer is also alleged to have promised to “keep him right” during the police investigation. The officer heading the ICPC investigation, however, dismissed these allegations and recommended no prosecution of the officer involved.
It would appear, however, that the ICPC continued to consider whether to recommend any disciplinary action against any RUC officers. They wrote to the Assistant Chief Constable of the RUC recommending that the more senior of the officers in the landrover at the time of the attack should be charged with the disciplinary offence of neglect of duty and should be suspended. Subsequently, when the Police Ombudsman had taken over responsibility for investigating the police response to the Hamill case, she reversed the decision of the ICPC. Further investigations by the Police Ombudsman have found shortfalls in supervision, debriefing, the recording of policy decisions, and record-keeping.
10. the conspiracy to pervert the course of justice
When a witness came forward alleging that an RUC officer had telephoned one of the murder suspects advising him on how to get rid of the clothes he was wearing on the night of the attack, the officer in question denied making the phone call and suggested that two friends who had been staying in his house had done so. These two individuals later said that they had indeed telephoned the house of the suspect at the relevant time. Later, one of them reversed her position and stated that she and her husband had lied to protect the RUC officer. These two were subsequently convicted of perverting the course of justice by falsely claiming to have made the telephone call in question.
A file was then sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions concerning the actions of the RUC officer involved and a decision was taken to prosecute him, his wife, and the father of the murder suspect concerned. However, the prosecution later collapsed when the credibility of the chief witness – the individual who had admitted lying about the phone call to protect the police officer – was found to be unreliable.
It is crucial that the present Inquiry establish the full extent of the conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and identify all of the individuals involved.
11. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CASE OF ROBERT HAMILL
Since the murder of Robert Hamill, there has been widespread public concern about the case in Northern Ireland. It has been closely followed and widely reported in the media, and has been the subject of a television documentary. The case has also received significant international attention. Among the reasons for the focus upon this particular case are that not only was it a blatantly sectarian murder, but also because of the evidence that RUC officers ignored the plight of Robert Hamill simply because he was a Catholic. The various allegations of gross dereliction of duty by several RUC officers, and the collusion of at least one with one of the murder suspects, have all contributed to damaging public confidence in the rule of law in Northern Ireland. Robert Hamill’s death is considered emblematic of institutionalised sectarianism within the police service in Northern Ireland and illustrates the inability of all aspects of the criminal justice system to deliver justice impartially.
12. THE NEED FOR AN EFFECTIVE INVESTIGATION INTO ROBERT HAMILL’S DEATH
All of the mechanisms of criminal justice in Northern Ireland have failed to provide an effective investigation into the murder of Robert Hamill, as required by Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It is therefore crucial that the present Inquiry provide an effective investigation, which is compliant with Article 2. The European Court of Human Rights has already laid out a set of principles on how a government should approach the investigation of such cases in accordance with Article 2. In the present case, it is for this Inquiry to ensure that they are finally applied, since the various investigations that have already taken place have all fallen short in a number of ways.
13. CONCLUSION
The murder of Robert Hamill has thrown into the sharpest possible relief the culture that pervades policing in Northern Ireland and the shortcomings of the criminal justice system. Robert Hamill was not attacked because of who he was, but because of what he was, a Catholic. It is our belief that it was for the same reason that the RUC officers whose duty it was to protect him failed to do so. What followed after his death compounded that original dereliction of duty: the police investigation was fatally flawed; at least one RUC officer colluded with at least one suspect; it proved impossible to bring five of the six suspects to trial; the trial itself did not result in any murder conviction; the inquest has been abandoned; and the RUC officers concerned have so far been neither disciplined nor prosecuted.
There is no other remedy available to Robert Hamill’s family than a public inquiry. An effective inquiry is essential if public confidence is to be restored in policing in Northern Ireland. The current programme of reforms in policing will be hollow if the issue of institutionalised sectarianism within the Police Service of Northern Ireland is not addressed. Robert Hamill’s murder has cast a long shadow. A country that is hopefully emerging from a sectarian conflict such as that suffered by Northern Ireland may be able to survive sectarian killings like the murder of Robert Hamill, although of course his family will always grieve for him, but it cannot survive what Robert Hamill’s death has exposed about sectarianism within the police service, about collusion and about the failings of the criminal justice system. In the view of British Irish rights watch, the present Inquiry must establish the truth about Robert Hamill’s death, which is the very least that his memory and his family deserve, learn the many lessons that arise from it, and make appropriate recommendations for reform so that everyone in Northern Ireland can have the benefit of decent policing.
For Peace Justice & Human Rights
