Contribution
My Lords, before I begin, I wish to put on record our condolences to the family and friends of Conor Bradford, a fine journalist and broadcaster with the BBC for many years, who died last week. Conor had an inimitable style and he will be much missed.
I am grateful to the Minister for providing time to enable us to ask questions on the Statement made by her right honourable friend the Secretary of State in the other place on the report of the Robert Hamill inquiry. I wish to extend our gratitude to the late Sir Edwin Jowitt, who carried out the initial inquiry and who first completed the report in 2011, and to Sir John Evans and Lady Richardson of Calow for updating and finishing it following the conclusion of legal proceedings in 2024.
The murder of Robert Hamill—for that is what it was, as the report makes clear—in April 1997 was a vile and vicious sectarian crime. Mr Hamill, a young man of 25 and a father of three, was returning home from an evening out in Portadown when he was attacked simply because he was a Roman Catholic. I know I speak for the whole House when I say that our thoughts and sincere condolences are with the grieving family and friends of Mr Hamill who have had to wait so long for this report.
As the House will be aware, the inquiry was the product of negotiations at Weston Park in 2001. It was confirmed in April 2004 by the then Secretary of State, the noble Lord, Lord Murphy of Torfaen, who is in his place, and held its public hearings in 2009. I was an adviser at the Northern Ireland Office when, in 2011, we were told that Sir Edwin had completed his report but that it could not be published due to ongoing legal proceedings. Astonishingly, these took a further 13 years, with a former RUC reservist, Robert Atkinson, finally pleading guilty in 2024 to conspiring to pervert the course of justice by calling the home of a potential suspect in the early hours following the attack. As a result, he was handed a 12-month sentence.
Does the Minister share my deep concern and frustration that this took so long, not least when it concluded with a guilty plea? Does she share the view of the trial judge that the actions of Mr Atkinson were,
“a disgrace to the uniform”?
I have known many fine RUC officers over the years and indeed count some as personal friends, but the conduct of Mr Atkinson both shortly after the attack and over subsequent years was utterly deplorable.
Regrettably, 29 years after this brutal murder, nobody has been convicted for it, even though there are probably people still around who know the truth of what happened that night. Could the Minister tell the House what the status of the murder inquiry is and where responsibility now rests for any further investigation?
One of the central allegations over the years, and which in large part led to calls for an inquiry, was the claim that four RUC officers in a Land Rover in the centre of Portadown that evening did nothing to prevent the attack that led to Mr Hamill’s death and were as a result guilty of collusion. Can the Minister confirm that Sir John and Lady Richardson concluded that, in respect of the officers in the Land Rover,
“they were not aware of the assault”
until they got out and,
“did not in any way condone or collude with attackers”;
that,
“they attempted to restore order”;
and, crucially, that,
“we have found no wrongful act or omission which facilitated Robert Hamill’s death”?
The report does go on to set out a number of very serious failings in the subsequent police investigation into the murder, including 14 wrongful acts or omissions on the part of officers, but any collusion is always wrong. It can never be justified and must always be condemned, as we did in government. Can the Minister confirm that, with the exception of the wrongful acts of Mr Atkinson and one deliberate wrongful act by Detective Chief Superintendent McBurney in delivering a misleading prosecution file, in all other areas the report concludes that the acts of omission were down to negligence or lack of diligence, however reprehensible that might be? Appalling as the crime was—and it was indeed heinous—does the Minister agree that there was no evidence of any overarching conspiracy within the Royal Ulster Constabulary to collude in the death of Mr Hamill or thwart its investigation?
Finally, we genuinely hope that, after so long, the report provides answers to the questions for which the Hamill family have waited for 29 long years. However, does the Minister agree that lengthy and costly public inquiries of this nature are not necessarily the best way of dealing with legacy issues? The independent commission that we established has now begun to deliver its reports, the first of which was presented on 23 September this year and was very well received by the family concerned. Does she agree that this is the right way forward to provide victims and survivors of the Troubles with as much information as possible about what happened to their loved ones?