PORTADOWN CATHOLIC Robert Hamill might not have died at the hands of loyalist attackers if police had intervened earlier, the inquiry investigating his murder has heard.
RUC officer Alan Neill was the driver of a police vehicle which was parked near the scene in the Co Armagh town in 1997 when Mr Hamill was beaten.
He told the inquiry yesterday that the door of his vehicle was opened and he was pulled out by a man who shouted accusations that police had sat by while Mr Hamill was fatally attacked.
The inquiry heard that Mr Neill responded that he did not know what the man was talking about.
He claimed that Mr Hamill was not lying injured on the ground when he was pulled from the vehicle and that the attack took place at a time when officers were intervening in other fights.
Mr Neill rejected a suggestion by Barra McGrory, for the Hamill family, that the officer was making up the story to cover up the RUC’s failure to intervene.
Mr Neill said he regretted that he and other officers had not got out of the Land Rover at an earlier stage.
He said he believed with hindsight that Mr Hamill might still be alive if he had done so. He said he suffered sleepless nights because of this and thoughts of the incident returned to him often.
Former SDLP minister Bríd Rogers told the inquiry an RUC sergeant had told her the police officers had said they were afraid to get out of their vehicle. She also told the inquiry that several Catholic witnesses had failed to come forward to the inquiry as they believed it to be a waste of time.