In the early hours of 27 April 1997, Robert Hamill was assaulted by a mob of thirty loyalists within yards of an RUC Land Rover. Robert was trying to make his way home from a dance at St. Patrick’s Hall, near the town centre of Portadown, with three friends – Gregory, Joanne and Siobhan. Unable to get a taxi Robert and his friends began to walk, and they approached Market Street, an area where gangs of young loyalists hang around at night. While this area is known to be dangerous for Catholics, the four friends saw an RUC Land Rover parked ahead and felt safe enough to walk through the area. The RUC officers had been already been warned by another man that more Catholics would be leaving St. Patricks Hall and were heading towards Market Street, where loyalists were gathered. As they crossed Market Street, Robert and his friend Gregory were set upon and beaten to the ground. Both were kicked unconscious. The beating of Robert continued for a number of minutes; he sustained fatal brain injuries. Although Siobhan banged on the side of the Land Rover and begged the RUC to intervene, the four officers remained inside. As an ambulance arrived a few minutes later, two of the RUC officers finally approached the scene. They did not administer first aid to the unconscious men lying in the street. Robert died after 12 days in a coma. In the immediate wake of the incident the RUC press office issued a series of contradictory and deliberately misleading statements.
One man from the mob was held at the scene, but only for a few minutes, after which he was released without being questioned. After Robert’s death this man was arrested along with five others. All six suspects asked to be placed on the Loyalist Volunteer Force wing in prison. By November 1997 all but one had been released. In April 1999 Paul Hobson was convicted of causing an affray but cleared of murder.
None of the RUC officers present, Constable Neil and Reserve Constables Atkinson, Cornett and Sharpe, were suspended or disciplined, nor were they prosecuted in relation to the case.
The Casement Park 3:
On 19th March 1988, millions of television viewers watched as they saw a crowd in West Belfast set upon two occupants of a car which had driven into a large funeral procession. A shot was fired by one of the occupants, the two men were violently hauled from their car, disarmed, taken to Casement Park, stripped and beaten. In the course of these events, it became apparent that the two were soldiers in civilian dress. They were subsequently killed by the IRA.
These events took place in a highly charged atmosphere. The soldiers drove into the funeral of Caomhin Mac Bradaigh, one of three men killed in a loyalist attack on mourners at the funeral of three unarmed IRA members shot dead in Gibraltar by the SAS. Much of the incident, including the final murder, was filmed by an army helicopter.
Three men, Patrick Kane, Michael Timmons and Sean Kelly, were sentenced to two life sentences each for the murder of the soldiers. The three men were found guilty of murder under the principle of ‘common purpose’. No-one has alleged that any of them were involved in the actual murder, or were present when the soldiers were murdered, or that their involvement in the lead-up to the murder was anything but relatively minor, yet all three were convicted of murder and received mandatory life sentences. Carswell J. found that all three accused participated in an illegal joint enterprise and that they foresaw that it might end in murder. Patrick Kane was subsequently cleared.
Those campaigning on behalf of the Casement accused believed ‘common purpose’ has been applied to infer that virtually all those present at the funeral was guilty of the offence and those present shared the gunmen’s ‘common purpose’ in killing the two soldiers. Carswell J., and the subsequent Appeal Court judges, ruled that because the men were attending the funeral of an IRA man, he would have known that IRA men were present and that, given the presence of IRA men, any loyalists or soldiers who were present would be put to death.
The relevance of this judgement to the Hamill case is that this principle was deemed inappropriate to those accused of involvement in the murder of Robert Hamill. This is despite their having participated in the fatal attack on Robert. Despite this, four of the five loyalists accused of involvement in the murder were found not guilty despite the precedent having been set in the Casement 3 case. It is not, however, the view of the Pat Finucane Centre that it would have been appropriate for the DPP to use the ‘common purpose’ inference in the Hamill prosecutions. The central issue is the obvious disparity in investigation and prosecution policy between the two cases. The enthusiasm with which the DPP pursued prosecutions in the Casement case contrasts sharply with the lack of prosecutions where the victim was perceived to be nationalist.