Robert Hamill Inquiry

[1] The Inquiry was established to investigate the death of Robert Hamill, following an incident in Portadown, County Armagh, Northern Ireland on 27 April 1997.

It was set up following a recommendation by a retired Canadian judge, Justice Peter Cory, who was asked to examine a number of deaths which had occurred in Northern Ireland.

They argued principally that the panel had asked itself the wrong question by declining to follow a literal interpretation of paragraph 31 of the decision of the Court of Appeal in England and Wales in R (A and others) v Lord Saville of Newdigate [2002] 1 WLR 1249 ('the Widgery Soldiers case') which concerned applications for anonymity to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry.

In February 2007, the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal quashed the inquiry panel's ruling, concluding that it had indeed applied the wrong test in reaching its decision.

The Panel's reason for making this recommendation by way of an interim report was its recognition that, if there was to be a reconsideration of the question of prosecution, it was in the public interest that it should be treated as a matter of urgency.