THE CHAIRMAN of the Robert Hamill Inquiry has pledged to work to uncover the truth about the killing of the Portadown Catholic nearly 12 years ago.
Addressing the opening public hearing of the inquiry, Sir Edwin Jowitt said: “Our overriding concern in this inquiry will be to do all we can to ascertain where the truth lies concerning the issues raised by our terms of reference.”
These include the circumstances surrounding the murder of the 25-year-old father of three who was kicked to death by loyalists in the centre of the Co Armagh town in 1997. The inquiry is also investigating claims that four armed RUC officers, in the area at the time of the killing, failed to intervene in the assault which cost Mr Hamill his life. The inquiry will also examine claims that one officer helped a suspect to remove evidence and promised to advise him of developments in the investigation.
Sir Edwin told the hearing in Belfast that he hoped the inquiry’s work would help Northern Ireland look to the future with hope.
“A society which is so busy remembering past conflicts that it ignores the present and doesn’t anticipate its future life is a society without hope,” he said.
Mr Hamill’s family also expressed hope that the facts surrounding the murder and the RUC investigation would be firmly established. “We are very hopeful we are going to get to the truth,” said the murdered man’s sister Diane.
“If there were any mistakes made, we want those to be acknowledged, but if there were any deliberate actions taken to allow the people that murdered my brother to walk free, if anyone helped them, we need that to be exposed.”
In a lengthy opening address, counsel to the inquiry, Ashley Underwood QC, said the killing took place in Portadown against the backdrop of widespread Catholic mistrust of the police.
“Mr Hamill’s death and the failures of the State to secure convictions arising out of it were emblematic of that mistrust,” he added.
“They resonated with the perceptions that the RUC was unwilling to assist Catholics generally, that the RUC and the criminal justice system were reckless about the investigation and prosecution of those who attacked Catholics, and that the system protected RUC officers.” He said the inquiry “intends to shine a powerful and unbiased spotlight on the public concerns that gave rise to it being established so that the truth can be revealed.”
Counsel for the Hamill family, Barra McGrory QC, said his clients had an “unshakeable belief” that Robert was murdered because of his religion “and for no other reason”.
“This terrible incident took place within feet of a police patrol which was sent to Portadown for the purpose of seeing there was no sectarian incident,” he said.
The RUC was “no ordinary police force” which found itself to the fore in decades of bitter conflict, he said. He gave a detailed account of the area’s place, placing the murder in a political and historical contest.
Martin Wolfe, junior counsel for the PSNI, said it would be wrong to suggest that the entire Catholic community mistrusted the policing system. He said some within the Protestant community also felt mistrust.
He denied the police and the Catholic community were in a “them and us straitjacket”.
The PSNI would continue to work with the inquiry with a spirit of openness. Grave allegations of wrongdoing are firmly denied by the police, he added.
Charles Adair, representing a number of individual RUC officers, said the outcome of the inquiry was of as much importance to those he represents as to the Hamill family.
He hoped the inquiry would dispel the Hamill family’s genuinely firmly held belief that the dead man’s religion would be shown to have any bearing on the matter.