THE REPUTATION of the former RUC and PSNI chief constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan was “in tatters” because of how he engaged with the police investigation of the murder of Robert Hamill, the inquiry was told yesterday.
Barra McGrory, lawyer for the Hamill family, accused Sir Ronnie, RUC chief constable when Mr Hamill was fatally assaulted in Portadown in April 1997, of lying to the inquiry. “In my respectful submission, Sir Ronnie Flanagan has lied to the tribunal,” he said.
Mr McGrory also complained of an 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. No one has been convicted of the killing.
At the hearing in September, Sir Ronnie rejected a claim by a senior retired British civil servant Anthony Langdon that he suggested to Mr Langdon that Mr Hamill could have died from oxygen starvation due to the manner in which a member of the Hamill family cradled his head.
In that evidence, Sir Ronnie also said he absolutely “refuted” a suggestion by Mr Langdon – who was compiling an official report on the killing – that the former chief constable claimed Mr Hamill’s sister Diane was pursuing an agenda to “discredit” the RUC.
Mr Langdon later in September stood over his account of his meeting with Sir Ronnie.
Mr McGrory said Sir Ronnie’s denials were not the truth and the points made by Mr Langdon were correct. “He said them and he knows he said them. Therefore his creditworthiness before this tribunal is in tatters,” he added.
Mr McGrory also referred to previous evidence that former RUC reserve officer Robert Atkinson, who was in a police Land Rover close to the scene of the assault, subsequently advised one of the suspects Alistair Hanvey to destroy his clothes.
This allegation was known to the late Det Chief Supt Maynard McBurney, who was in overall charge of the murder investigation in May 1997, said Mr McGrory.
While Mr McBurney had two conversations about the murder with Sir Ronnie in May 1997, Sir Ronnie said he was unaware of the allegation about Mr Atkinson allegedly colluding with Mr Hanvey until June 2000. Mr McGrory said it was “inconceivable” that Sir Ronnie was not made aware of this allegation in his conversations with Mr McBurney in May 1997.
Mr McGrory also accused Sir Ronnie of failing to properly brief the late Northern secretary Mo Mowlam about the circumstances of the murder when, after being pressed by the Hamill family, she asked him for information about the killing. “The secretary of state was kept in the dark,” he said.
Mr McGrory also suggested the attack and the failure of the investigation was due to Mr Hamill being a Catholic. He said Mr Atkinson, in allegedly advising Mr Hanvey, was motivated by anti-Catholic sectarianism, and this was illustrated by Mr Atkinson joining the Orange Order after the murder to try to “redeem” himself with loyalists.