The lamentable response to the Robert Hamill Inquiry…

Bridgewater is a Slugger reader from Belfast.

The Robert Hamill Inquiry was published yesterday. The 25 year old Catholic father of three was viciously murdered by a group of Protestants in the centre of Portadown in 1997, simply because he was a Catholic.

One of the most astounding elements of this case was the non-intervention of four RUC officers in a Land Rover a few feet from the assault. The Inquiry found that those officers were unaware of the assault on Hamill, and did not ‘condone or collude’ the assault, as the officers were dealing with another incident at the time of the assault.

That is perhaps the one sliver of silver lining for the police; the Inquiry has found they did not sit back and watch a man be kicked to death. The rest of the report makes very grim reading indeed for the RUC and PSNI.

By far the most serious wrongdoing of a police officer was that of Robert Atkinson. He was one of the four officers in the Land Rover a few feet from the assault. Hours after the assault on Hamill, Atkinson phoned the home of Allister Hanvey, a suspect in the murder. Atkinson had encountered Hanvey at the scene, and he left word during that phone call that Hanvey should destroy the clothes he wore that evening. Atkinson plead guilty to perverting the course of justice in 2024, as he lied to police about making the phone call to Hanvey. There is a long saga of investigation and prosecutions into the tip-off call – three people, including Atkinson, have been jailed for perverting the course of justice in relation to the phone call over 22 years.

In total, the Inquiry found 9 RUC Officers made 14 wrongful acts or omissions in the investigation of Hamill’s murder. It is a litany of negligence and deliberate wrongful acts. Aside from Atkinson, Detective Chief Superintendent Maynard McBurney comes in for very heavy criticism. He was one of the most senior RUC officers (DCS is one rank below Assistant Chief Constable); as senior investigating officer, McBurney failed to keep a policy book detailing his decision-making and rationale, failed to investigate Atkinson’s tip-off as part of the murder, and deliberately submitted a misleading file to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

How have Northern Ireland’s politicians reacted to the publication of this report?

Sinn Féin and the SDLP, rightfully, lambasted the police for their failings. They also correctly highlighted that Hamill’s sectarian murder in Portadown, 1997, took place during the height of the Drumcree dispute which significantly worsened community relations in Portadown.

Alliance has been totally silent thus far. The party leader and justice minister, Naomi Long, has made no public statement. Deputy leader and local MLA, Eoin Tennyson, has made no public statement. Sorcha Eastwood, the party’s only MP, was not present for the Secretary of State’s oral statement in the House of Commons. Other MPs not present included the DUP’s Gavin Robinson, Gregory Campbell, the UUP’s Robin Swann and independent unionist Alex Easton, as well as abstentionist Sinn Féin MPs.

UUP leader Jon Burrows focused on Robert Atkinson, who he said was, ‘a disgrace and was rightly jailed.’ It is perhaps unsurprising the former PSNI officer had nothing to say about wider RUC failings. The PSNI is also speechless at present. The Chief Constable chose Monday to apologise to former officer Ursula Merrick for discrimination she received whilst in the force, even though an employment tribunal found in her favour three years ago. One wonders if that apology, having not been made several months ago, could have waited until later in the week. Merrick was waiting three years. With all due respect to her, Hamill’s family has been waiting for nearly 30 years.

TUV leader Jim Allister lamented the £33m cost of the Inquiry, and asked what we learnt that wasn’t already in the public domain. The King’s Counsel acted for a defendant in a trial for a murder of Robert Hamill, which returned a not guilty verdict. We learnt Jim Allister was assisted in his task by the serial negligence of the RUC, for a start. Allister seemed to imply that because there had been a murder trial and a not guilty verdict, that justice had been done – even though no one has ever been convicted of Hamill’s murder. He had no words of comfort for the Hamill family. From Hansard:

Jim Allister, (North Antrim) (TUV)
I should declare that in a previous life I was one of the defence counsel in the murder case that arose from the shocking death of Robert Hamill. So there was a murder trial and there was a due verdict of not guilty, and we should not forget that either.

May I ask the Secretary of State, after £33 million and more, what is it that we now know from this report that we did not know from the public murder trial, and that we did not know from the public appearances and reporting and trial of Robert Atkinson? We have spent over £33 million, and most of what is in this report was already in the public domain.

Perhaps what was not in the public domain was the fact that the audacious, constant propaganda that the police officers had colluded in the murder has now been wholly debunked, and the report quite properly finds that they did no wrongful act or omission facilitating that murder. That is a big price to pay to arrive at that conclusion and the conclusion that there was no collusion, contrary to the constant refrain of some for almost 30 years. I welcome the fact that that at least has been laid to rest.

Chris Bryant
First, just because nobody has been convicted of murder does not mean that a murder was not committed. Indeed, one of the most painful aspects of all of this is that, clearly, as this report finds for the first time, there was a murder. The cause of death was at least three beatings to the head that Robert Hamill received—possibly two or more being kicks to the head when he was already lying on the ground, and possibly a third from a bottle. It beggars belief that in this country we can all decide that somebody was murdered but nobody ends up facing justice for the murder. I suppose that is one of the pains that arises in many of the cases that we deal with here.

The local MP, the DUP’s Carla Lockhart, at least had the decency to say her thoughts were with the family. Things took an indecent turn, however. She took the opportunity to attack the family’s former solicitor, Rosemary Nelson, herself murdered by loyalists, for complaining on the family’s behalf that officers in the Land Rover should have done more. She asked the Secretary of State to defend the four officers in the Land Rover. Again from Hansard:

Carla Lockhart (Upper Bann) (DUP)
This relates directly to my constituency, so I welcome the opportunity to speak to it today. Robert Hamill’s murder was a brutal and appalling crime, and my thoughts are first and foremost with his family, who have many questions, as do many families right across Northern Ireland. But the truth matters, and the truth today is clear. Paragraph 21 finds that four RUC officers

“were not aware of the assault until they got out and they did not in any way condone or collude with attackers.”

Paragraph 75 concludes that

“we have found no wrongful act or omission which facilitated Robert Hamill’s death.”

Put simply, they did not sit idly by, they did not collude, they did not facilitate murder—something that has been hurled at them for the past 30 years.

The complaint, advanced by Rosemary Nelson, has been demolished by the inquiry, which also found that she failed to “co-operate fully” with the RUC and

“did not improve the situation.”

This goes to the heart of the nationalist republican legacy activism, whereby truth and the rule of law are subjective terms to be weaponised to seek to arrive at a predetermined political outcome.

More than 300 RUC officers were murdered while protecting the entire community. Will the Secretary of State now end this decades-long smear, defend these four officers and reject any attempt to rewrite history or attach collective guilt to the RUC?

In one last act of negligence in this very sorry saga, and in her eagerness to defend the RUC and attack political nationalism, she failed to reflect that one of those officers she was defending was Robert Atkinson. The same officer who perverted the course of justice for Robert Hamill.