The long-awaited report of the public inquiry into the murder of Portadown man Robert Hamill was finally published today, almost 15 years after it was first completed.
It concluded that police did not collude with his attackers but that the subsequent murder investigation was obstructed by a series of wrongful acts and omissions by RUC officers.
Mr Hamill, a 25-year-old Catholic father-of-three, was beaten by a loyalist mob at the Thomas Street/Woodhouse Street junction in Portadown town centre in the early hours of April 27, 1997, as he and friends walked home from a dance at St Patrick’s Hall. He never regained consciousness and died in hospital 11 days later.
An RUC Land Rover carrying four officers was stationed nearby at the time, giving rise to long-standing allegations that police watched the attack and failed to intervene.
Even before the violence was brought under control there were allegations that the Land Rover crew could have done more to avert the incident. Within days rumours were circulating within the Catholic community in Portadown to the effect that the police sat in the Land Rover watching the violence and did not intervene because their sympathies were with the Protestant assailants. There was also a rumour that at least one of the officers knew one or more of the attackers.
The Inquiry panel found that the officers were not aware Mr Hamill was being attacked, as their attention was on two other men at their vehicle, and did not condone or collude with the attackers.
Two of the three panel members cleared the Land Rover crew of any wrongdoing; the Inquiry’s original chairman, Sir Edwin Jowitt, took the view that each officer was guilty of a wrongful omission for failing to keep watch, though all three agreed the distraction did not facilitate Mr Hamill’s death.
The report is far more critical of the murder investigation that followed. It sets out a series of wrongful acts and omissions by named officers, including a failure to debrief officers who had been at the scene, a failure to record a warning about a suspect, and delays in pursuing a “tip-off” allegation that a Reserve Constable had advised a suspect to dispose of clothing.
The Inquiry found that Reserve Constable Robert Atkinson deliberately obstructed the investigation by withholding information and telephoning a suspect’s home, but rejected claims that the wider failings amounted to collusion, concluding instead that there was “a catalogue of failures in the checks and balances” that should have ensured the case was properly investigated.
The Inquiry found that Mr Hamill’s death amounted to murder, with his attackers having intended at least to cause him serious injury.
Publication of the report has been delayed since it was first completed in 2011, when the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland withheld it to avoid prejudicing the prosecution of three people over the case. That process did not conclude until June 2024, when Robert Atkinson was sentenced to 12 months in prison for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
Sir Edwin Jowitt, who chaired the Inquiry from its establishment in 2004, died in June 2026; Sir John Evans, who succeeded him as chair in October 2024, oversaw the report’s finalisation alongside panel member the Reverend Baroness Kathleen Richardson.
The 290-page report also makes a series of recommendations for the PSNI on training, staffing and the conduct of murder investigations. Read the full report here.
Related: Former RUC officer who called Portadown murder suspect branded ‘a disgrace to the uniform’
