The Harron family must feel let down by the criminal justice system, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor
Members of the Harron family were trudging the streets of Dublin on a bitterly cold Christmas Day in 2003 following up a report that Attracta Harron was seen there. This was just three weeks after the retired librarian disappeared as she was returning from Mass in Lifford to her home in Strabane, Co Tyrone.
Her five children and her husband Michael were chasing every lead that came their way about her possible whereabouts. They got a tip-off that she was in Dublin and the family went there on Christmas Day hoping to find her.
That image seemed to make a particular impact on Mr Justice Richard McLaughlin who yesterday made legal history in Northern Ireland by telling Trevor Hamilton (24) from Sion Mills, Co Tyrone, that he would spend the rest of his life in prison for the crime. Unusually, life will mean life.
In his judgment at Dungannon Crown Court yesterday, the judge made particular reference to the plight of the family, the enormous void that was now in their lives, their devotion to her as a wife and mother, all of which he seemed to feel was exemplified in that vain trip to Dublin on a freezing Christmas Day.
The judge also adverted to her accepting a lift from Hamilton the day she disappeared as she was walking the relatively short distance back across the Border from Lifford in Donegal into Strabane. It was in her trusting nature to accept the offer, he said, not realising that Hamilton was a highly dangerous individual.
The murder was "the stuff of nightmares", the judge said. Psychological reports had found Hamilton was not mentally unbalanced, that he knew what he was doing. "As the medical evidence shows you do not suffer from any mental illness or abnormality of personality . . . I do not consider it appropriate therefore to regard your age as a mitigating factor."
It was no surprise that Mrs Harron's son Micheál would describe Hamilton as "pure evil". Some local people living in Sion Mills who knew him, and in some cases had knowledge of his deviant sexual predilections, agreed with that analysis.
Hamilton, a loner with a low IQ, was a flasher at 12, a rapist at 17 and a murderer of Mrs Harron when he was 21. He was just months out of prison on parole on the rape conviction when he attacked her.
He brutally assaulted her with an axe or hatchet and buried her in a makeshift bag in a hole dug into the side of a riverbank behind his home. Such was the state of her body when it was found four months later, it could not be stated with certainty that she was sexually assaulted, but considering Hamilton's previous record, that is the reasonable assumption.
The Harrons have handled themselves with great dignity throughout their entire ordeal.
They thanked the PSNI for finally establishing the proof to put Hamilton away in prison, and accepted that Northern Ireland Probation Board officers did their best to monitor and prevent Hamilton committing more crimes.
But they must justifiably feel let down by the Northern Ireland criminal justice system and its agencies. As Micheál Harron said yesterday: "My mother did not have to die for the public to be protected from Hamilton."
In prison for rape, Hamilton had shown no remorse, just as he showed no remorse for the murder. He was classified as a category three prisoner - the most dangerous kind - which meant that on release he was still a serious risk.
It was for the Probation Board to monitor him, but either through lack of resources, Hamilton's deviousness or the fact that he wasn't or couldn't be tracked 24 hours of each day, he was able to abduct and murder.
One of the problems, as was officially admitted yesterday, was that there was not sufficient sharing of information about Hamilton between the main agencies, the Probation Board, the PSNI and the North's Prison Service.
Too late for the Harrons, the North's criminal justice minister David Hanson announced a review into the management of sex offenders.
"The agencies involved in the management of Trevor Hamilton have already learned lessons from this tragic case and will continue to do so," he pledged.