January 21, 2004 Hamill Family Still Playing Long, Weary Waiting Game
by Sharon O'Neill, Irish News

With the British government still considering whether to publish reports into four controversial killings examined by retired Canadian judge Peter Cory, left. Chief Reporter Sharon O'Neill looks at one of those cases and asks how a 25-year-old Catholic man was brutally beaten by a loyalist mob yards from an RUC Land Rover.

After six years of campaigning for an independent inquiry into her brother's murder, Diane Hamill's resolve, while tested on countless occasions, remains steadfast.

She has reluctantly thrust herself into the media spotlight in the battle to uncover the truth of the murder of her brother Robert.

Mr Hamill was attacked by a 30-strong loyalist mob just yards from an RUC Land Rover after a night out in Portadown on April 27 1997.

The 25-year-old, whose fiancee was expecting their third child at the time, never regained consciousness and died 12 days later in Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital.

The labourer and his friends had decided to walk the short distance home from St Patrick's Hall through Portadown town centre after failing to get a taxi.

It was a route that took them through a sectarian flashpoint but they felt reassured by the presence of an RUC Land Rover parked nearby.

However, that sense of security was shattered within minutes when a loyalist gang launched an unprovoked assault on the four revellers. Robert and his friend Gregory Girvan were savagely beaten.

Mr Girvan's wife Joanne lay over her husband in a bid to protect him from the mob, while her sister Siobhan tried to shield Robert, but the injuries already sustained were to prove fatal.

Criticism of the police was swift, particularly of the four officers in the Land Rover, who witnesses allege failed to intervene - a claim consistently denied by the police.

Siobhan Girvan said that Robert was "beaten like a dog" by the mob chanting "kill the fenian bastard".

"The police jeep was sitting at the top of Woodhouse Street. We screamed for help and an ambulance," she recalled later.

"No-one came to help. We would have been safer if we had been four dogs. We would have been taken to the vet quickly," she said a short time later.

Diane, oblivious to what was going on was working at a nursing home in Co Antrim.

"My mummy and my youngest brother were staying with me for the weekend," recalls Diane.

"At 5.30am (on the morning of April 27), the door bell (of the nursing home) rang, it was my mother and brother.

"She came in crying and shouting 'Robert's been hurt, Robert's been hurt'.

"Mummy said they (loyalists) hurt him and kept shouting 'the police were there, Diane, and they didn't help him'.

"I just couldn't believe it. Our Robert was the biggest one of us, I just couldn't believe he could be hurt in any way at all.

"I think my brothers and sisters had waited for a while before telling mummy, to see how Robert was, but then they realised he was seriously ill."

Robert was transferred from Craigavon Hospital to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.

As Diane waited outside intensive care a patient was being wheeled out for a brain scan - at first glance she didn't realise it was her brother.

"He had nearly passed (on a trolley), when I thought: 'I better go and take a look'. It was Robert, I was just flabbergasted. He was unconscious.

"Robert was in intensive care for a couple of days. He was then moved out because he could breathe on his own.

"He was able to move parts of his body but seemed to be in constant pain. It was as if he knew he was trapped and his body couldn't do anything.

"We were told he was out of danger and wasn't going to die. I was expecting a long, long recovery. That was OK, I could handle that."

Hopeful that her brother would regain consciousness, Diane decided to return to work, but Robert's condition dramatically deteriorated.

"His bed was at the bottom of the ward, and the curtains covered it," said Diane.

"The night before (Robert's death), there was a wee man in the bed across the way who hadn't been too well, and I thought something had happened to him. But as I walked further down somebody said to me 'don't go down there'.

"One of the nurses then said 'come over here and have a seat'. I walked past her and said, 'Is he alright, is he alright' and she said 'no'."

When Diane saw her brother his body was very hot, a symptom of the brain injury he sustained, but she knew he was gone.

"I will never forget it," she says. "Robert wouldn't have been attacked that night if he wasn't a Catholic. He was a tall, handsome, jolly, big bloke, always cracking jokes. He was just devoted to his boys."

The coming days rolled into one for the Hamills - their grief compounded by police claims that Robert had been injured during clashes between rival factions.

"They (the police) said he was fighting, he wasn't," she says.

"Ten days later they (police) admitted it was an unprovoked attack.

"How could that number of people feel safe to attack and kill a Catholic within yards of four armed RUC officers? Where did they get that confidence from?

"We were so angry, that is why we looked for a solicitor and came across Rosemary Nelson (the Catholic solicitor murdered by loyalists in 1999). I had never been near a solicitor before in my life," says Diane.

On May 11 1997, five Portadown men; Allister Hanvey (19), a machine operator from Derryanvil Road, Wayne David Lunt (17), a labourer from Manderly Court, Paul Rodney Marc Hobson (20) unemployed from Deer Park, Dean Forbes (18), a painter and decorator from Deramore Drive and Stacy Bridgett (19) a roofer from Donard Walk, appeared in court, each charged with murder.

The following day Rory Robinson (25) of Corcrain Avenue, Portadown, also appeared in court charged with Mr Hamill's murder. But the charges against five of them were dropped.

Paul Rodney Marc Hobson went to trial but was acquitted of murder and sentenced to four years in jail for causing an affray. He was freed in 1999.

The dropping of the murder charges was, to the family, an outcome which they had predicted from an early stage.

"We knew they (the murder charges) were going to be dropped. In my view, the police evidence was abominable - it was embarrassing to listen to.

"But you always have that hope at the back of your head that justice will prevail. My brother was killed in cold blood and someone had to be held accountable for it."

In a further development in October 1999, the Director of Public Prosecutions made the decision not to prosecute the police officers on duty that night.

The following year John Leckey, the coroner for greater Belfast, decided an inquest into Mr Hamill's death would not be held because of fears for the safety of civilian witness.

All appeared lost. But the family regrouped and called on the support of those in similar circumstances.

They forged close links with the family of black teenager Stephen Lawrence who was killed by a racist gang at a bus stop in east London in April 1993.

Strong parallels have been drawn between the Hamill case and that of the murdered 17-year-old.

Diane also sought strength from words of encouragement from fellow campaigners, whose battles long outstretched her own.

"A few days after Robert died we met Amnesty International and British Irish Rights Watch (human rights groups) and they said 'are you sure you want to go ahead with this because this will be a long, hard slog?' she recalls.

"Martin Finucane (brother of solicitor Pat Finucane murdered in 1989) said to me 'you have to keep chipping, chipping away'.

"Now and again we would meet. Now and again Martin would phone me up."

A major breakthrough came in 2001 when the newly appointed Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan took over the supervision of the case.

Developments were quick - several arrests, including that of an RUC officer.

But given their previous experience the Hamill family remained unsure that any charges would eventually be brought.

In 2002 Michael McKee of 10 Pineview Heights, Gilford, Co Down, and Andrea McKee of Stabler Crescent, Garden Village, Wrexham, were sentenced after admitting giving false information about who made a telephone call to a suspect's house just hours after the attack on Mr Hamill.

The exact detail and nature of the telephone call cannot be disclosed for legal reasons but the McKees' admission has resulted in charges of perverting the course of justice being brought against three people, including a former RUC officer and his wife.

Added to this is a continuing internal police probe, while the Irish News recently revealed that two officers were disciplined in connection with the investigation into the murder of Mr Hamill.

A woman constable - deployed at the scene in the aftermath of the attack on Mr Hamill on April 27 1997 - is believed to have been the subject of an internal probe over poor written records of the incident.

Disciplinary action against a senior officer related to procedural issues involving the securing of the scene to preserve any forensic evidence.

It is understood that two other high-ranking officers, (one has since left the service), are also part of the internal inquiry over their role in the murder investigation.

"We wouldn't know half of the stuff we know now if it wasn't for her (the police ombudsman)," says Diane.

"But the bigger picture has now been filled in. It is worse than what we had thought."

Mr Hamill's case was one of four controversial killings, including that of Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson, re-examined by Judge Peter Cory to determine whether there should be public inquiries.

In yesterday's Irish News it was confirmed that Judge Cory had contacted relatives of Mrs Nelson, Mr Finucane, the Hamills and relatives of LVF leader Billy Wright, informing them that he had recommended public inquiries into each of the four killings.

His move came in the face of a British government decision to delay publication of his reports on the cases, amid what officials say are legal concerns over the reports' contents.

The Irish government has already confirmed its intention to launch an inquiry into allegations of Garda collusion in the IRA murder of RUC officers Harry Breen and Bob Buchanan.

It is another waiting game for the Hamills, along with the other families.

"Over time you come to expect obstacles will be put up," says Diane.

"The security forces didn't do their job and you would think they would definitely be held accountable over their lack of action.

"My brother was an innocent man who was trying to make his way home under the protection of the security forces.

"When he needed them most, the only time he ever needed them in his life, they weren't there to help him.

"If they are not there to uphold law and order what are they there for?

"There has been such a cover-up. It can't be allowed to go on. If you want peace, you can't have peace without truth and justice.

"Cory's definition of collusion is: 'the involvement, whether or not it was a failure to act or impartially investigate'. We fall within his idea of collusion."

Sadly for Diane, her father Desmond, who died in 2000, and solicitor Rosemary Nelson, who relentlessly drove on their fight amid mounting opposition, are not here to see any successful outcome to the case.

"As soon as we spoke to Rosemary, she was very aware of the gravity of the situation," recalls Diane.

"Judge Cory wouldn't have looked at our Robert's case if it wasn't for Rosemary.

"She really pushed me to do press conferences and speak at a Bloody Sunday event. She said: 'You can do it, you are a strong woman, you can'."