A WOMAN initially viewed by the police and prosecution service as a key and credible witness of the fatal assault on Robert Hamill has told the inquiry into his sectarian killing that she lied in her original statement incriminating people allegedly involved in the attack.
Tracey Clarke told the inquiry in Belfast yesterday that her original statement was untrue and was motivated by vindictiveness against her then former boyfriend Alistair Hanvey, who later became her husband.
Ms Clarke in her original statement to the RUC in May 1997 said she saw Mr Hanvey kicking Mr Hamill as he lay on the ground in the centre of Portadown. She also named four others who were allegedly involved in the loyalist mob beating of Mr Hamill on April 27th, 1997. He died 11 days later.
“I was just being a little rat, a bitch, wanting to get him [Hanvey] in trouble,” said Ms Clarke.
No one has been convicted of Mr Hamill’s murder.
The inquiry is investigating allegations including a claim that RUC officers who were close to the scene failed in their duty to intervene, that one officer colluded with a suspect, that suspects were not detained on the night, and that the crime scene was not properly maintained.
The inquiry heard how at the time of the attack Mr Hanvey was the then “estranged boyfriend” of Ms Clarke. She later married Mr Hanvey and the couple had two girls. She is now separated from Hanvey, although she described herself as Mrs Hanvey when giving evidence by video link yesterday. Throughout the inquiry she had been described as Tracey Clarke.
Ms Clarke failed to attend a hearing of the inquiry on January 29th but following a High Court case last week she agreed to give evidence.
In her original statement to the police Ms Clarke, who was 17 at the time, also identified Dean Forbes, Stacey Bridgett, Rory Robinson and a person called “Muck” later identified as Marc Hobson as Mr Hamill’s attackers. Charges of involvement in the murder against the five eventually were dropped.
She also said that as “far as I could see the police were not doing much to stop what was happening”. She said that later at a party in Portadown “some of the people involved appeared to be happy about what they had done”.
Ms Clarke also said that after the attack Mr Hanvey told her that an RUC officer at the scene, Robbie Atkinson later told him to destroy all the clothes he was wearing the night of the attack. Mr Atkinson has already told the inquiry that this allegation is untrue.
In her evidence to the inquiry yesterday, however, Ms Clarke insisted that she told lies in her original statement and that she never saw Mr Hamill being attacked. She said she named Mr Hanvey and the others partially because the police had “suggested” these names and also through “hearsay”. “I just went along with it,” she said.
Ms Clarke held to her position notwithstanding evidence put to her that she had told her mother and step-father information that corroborated her initial statement to the police. Ms Clarke also told the inquiry that as a result of her statement she was forced to move from Portadown to Belfast and that she felt under threat from loyalist paramilitaries. She said she had received psychiatric treatment.
