An inquiry into the sectarian murder of Robert Hamill has found police officers who were in a Land Rover near the scene did not collude with the attackers.
However, the report said that a number of “wrongful acts and omissions” by RUC officers obstructed the investigation into his murder.
These included the failure to properly search the home of a key suspect.
Mr Hamill, a 25-year-old Catholic, died after he was attacked in Portadown, County Armagh in April 1997.
Mr Hamill and a friend were beaten by loyalists as they walked along Portadown’s Market Street after a night out.
The father-of-three, suffered serious head injuries and died 11 days after the attack.
The murder was the subject of a public inquiry to probe whether the actions of RUC officers had facilitated his death or obstructed the murder investigation.
In 2004 the then Northern Ireland secretary Paul Murphy announced the terms of reference for the inquiry into the death of Mr Hamill.
The delay in the report of the public inquiry was caused by live legal proceedings which concluded in 2024 when former police officer Robert Cecil Atkinson from Brownstown Road in Portadown was convicted of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.
The report said: “We find that Robert Hamill had been assaulted before the Land Rover officers got out of their vehicle.
“However, they were not aware of the assault and after they had got out of their vehicle, they attempted to restore order.
“They did not in any way condone or collude with attackers.”
The report did say that serving RUC officers were guilty of wrongful omissions, and that those omissions arose “both at the scene and during the initial investigation”.
It found that Atkinson was guilty of a “wrongful act” for making a telephone call to a suspect which resulted in that individual destroying or putting beyond the reach of police the clothes he had been wearing the night Mr Hamill was murdered.
The report pointed to a number of flaws in the subsequent murder investigation, particularly how the investigation into how the telephone call by Atkinson to the suspect was handled.
The report said: “The failure to treat the tip-off allegation as part of the murder investigation was negligent.”
Other RUC flaws highlighted by the report included a failure of officers to carry out an initial debriefing both at the scene and immediately upon return to the police station “with multiple officers finishing their shifts or going onto other duties without recording what had happened”.
The report said: “This had a serious and significant impact on the murder investigation and these omissions were negligent.”
It said there was also a failure to “properly search the home of a key suspect on 10 May 1997 for signs of destroyed clothing or for all shoes that might have been worn”.
It said: “These omissions amounted to a lack of due diligence.”
The report said there was a failure to “properly develop the murder investigation in multiple ways after the arrest of six suspects in May 1997”.
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