Pensioner’s killer told he will die in prison

A KILLER who murdered a pensioner just months after being freed for rape must stay in jail until he dies, a judge ruled yesterday.

An unrepentant Trevor Hamilton, aged 24, was given the longest prison sentence yet imposed in the North for abducting retired librarian Attracta Harron, 65, on her way home from church and bludgeoning her to death.

Trial judge Mr Justice McLaughlin told the farm labourer he had used pitiless and chilling cruelty on his helpless victim.

Sentencing him to life imprisonment, he said: “What you did to Mrs Harron, a good and loving woman, was at once nauseating and horrifying.

“It was the stuff of nightmares and the epitome of the loss of innocence in our community.

“What that poor woman experienced as you prepared to execute her, whatever weapon you used to accomplish it, was so appalling that it demands retribution of the most severe kind.

“Only one punishment is appropriate, especially as you have been given a second chance in the past but it had no effect on your behaviour. You will in consequence spend the rest of your life in prison.”

Shaven-headed Hamilton smiled as he was led away by warders to begin his sentence.

As the British Government ordered an immediate review into the management of sex attackers in the North following a public outcry at how Hamilton — a high-risk offender — was allowed back onto the streets after serving half of a seven-year sentence for rape, Ms Harron’s family insisted her life could have been spared.

Her husband Michael, a retired grammar school teacher, expressed relief that a killer he described as pure evil could never look forward to freedom.

But he insisted that had English legislation been used, Hamilton, who was assessed by police to be a “calculating and callous criminal”, would never have been released to murder.

“A psychopath was let loose. The probation service did their best but he successfully evaded them”, said Mr Harron.

His son Micheal added that Ms Harron didn’t have to die for the public to be protected from Hamilton.

Saying that their agony and grief would last for generations, he said: “All the evidence was available that Hamilton was a category-three offender, he was going to re-offend.

“He was very violent and a great danger to any woman who crossed his path.”

Ms Harron, a mother-of-five and devout Catholic, vanished in December 2003 as she walked home to Strabane, Co Tyrone, after attending Mass just across the Border in Lifford, Co Donegal.

A trusting woman who accepted lifts, she was driven off in Hamilton’s red Hyundai Lantra.

Blood stains discovered in the car showed she was dead within an hour of the abduction. An axe or hatchet may have been used to batter her to death, experts said.

Hamilton then buried Ms Harron’s body in a riverbank behind his family home at Sion Mills, Co Tyrone.

It was four months before sniffer dogs discovered her remains.

Rejecting the killer’s age as a mitigating factor, Mr Justice McLaughlin told Hamilton his denials throughout a seven-week trial amounted to a “pathetic, puerile and transparent lying exercise”.