FORMER RUC chief constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan has again denied a series of allegations that he behaved improperly in terms of how the investigation of the murder of Robert Hamill was conducted.
Sir Ronnie appeared by video link at the Robert Hamill Inquiry in Belfast yesterday to deal with more allegations put to the inquiry since he gave evidence in September.
Earlier this month Barra McGrory QC, representing the Hamill family, accused Sir Ronnie – RUC chief constable when Robert Hamill was assaulted by a loyalist mob in Portadown in April 1997 – of lying to the inquiry. Mr Hamill died 11 days after the assault.
Sir Ronnie focused on evidence provided by retired senior British civil servant Anthony Langdon given to the inquiry in September, over a week after Sir Ronnie gave his evidence. Mr Langdon had been asked by the then Northern secretary Peter Mandelson in 2000 to examine the circumstances of the murder.
In an interview with Sir Ronnie in July 2000 Mr Langdon said the former chief constable was in a “pretty defensive and critical mood” and that Sir Ronnie “commented that Hamill’s death could well have been caused by his own family cradling his head in a way that led to oxygen starvation”.
Mr Langdon also suggested that Sir Ronnie claimed that Mr Hamill’s sister Diane was pursuing an agenda to “discredit” the RUC.
This month Mr McGrory said this evidence illustrated that Mr Langdon’s account was correct and that Sir Ronnie lied to the inquiry and that his reputation was “in tatters”.
Yesterday Sir Ronnie said these allegations were wrong. He said he may have said that there was a perception elsewhere that Ms Hamill was out to damage the RUC and that Mr Hamill may have died because of the way his head was cradled, but it certainly was not his (Sir Ronnie’s) opinion.
Sir Ronnie, who now works in the Middle East, also rejected a claim previously put by Mr McGrory that in 1997 he had withheld information about the investigation from the then Northern secretary, the late Mo Mowlam. He said he got on “extremely well personally” with Dr Mowlam. “There was no way that I would have deliberately withheld information from her,” he said.
Previously, Mr McGrory said four police officers who were in an RUC Land Rover close to where Mr Hamill was attacked were largely ineffective in protecting him or apprehending his assailants. He also complained of a more general anti-Catholic policing mentality in relation to how the police allegedly failed in their duty on the night of the attack on Mr Hamill and in the subsequent murder investigation.
Charles Adair QC, for three of these four officers and who was acting for other police officers involved in the case, said there was “not a shred of evidence” that whatever police “did or didn’t do” was in any way related to the fact that Mr Hamill was a Catholic.
Mr Adair complained that since 1997 police officers had been unfairly subjected to “vilification and propaganda” over the killing.