MP calls for investigation into Hamilton case

A Northern Ireland MP today called for a full investigation into how a well known sex offender was able to murder a retired librarian.

Democratic Unionist MP Gregory Campbell was commenting after it emerged 23-year-old Trevor Hamilton from Sion Mills in Co Tyrone was one of the most closely monitored sex offenders in Northern Ireland.

Hamilton was yesterday found guilty by a jury of the horrific murder of 65-year-old Attracta Harron, whose body lay undiscovered for four months in a makeshift grave near his home.

The farm labourer will be sentenced later following psychiatric reports.

William McAuley, the co-ordinator of the Sex Offenders Strategic Management Committee said lessons would have to be learnt from Mr Hamilton’s case after it emerged he was under scrutiny after a previous conviction for a sex assault on a woman who he had lured into his car.

Mrs Harron was murdered just months after Trevor Hamilton was released from prison after serving time for the rape.

Mr McAuley said: “He was being closely monitored in that he would have been regularly visited by police officers because of his sex offender registration, because of his risk management plan and he would have been visited by probation officers through his being on a supervised probation order and on the risk management plan.

“He would have been visited very, very regularly – probably more regularly than any other sex offender at that point in time in Northern Ireland.”

East Derry MP Gregory Campbell expressed concern about the case.

“I think there has to be a full investigation of this case to see how closely he was monitored, how systematic the entire monitoring was and to see what improvement in the existing legislation there can be,” he told BBC Radio Ulster.

Mrs Harron from Strabane, Co Tyrone vanished while returning from morning Mass near Murlog Chapel in Lifford, Co Donegal over the Irish border in December 2003.

Her remains were discovered four months later near Trevor Hamilton’s home after specialist body recovery dogs were brought in from the South Yorkshire Police.

She had been bludgeoned around the head and her body was wrapped in a meal sack.

The case made legal history as jurors at Dungannon Crown Court were allowed to hear evidence of Trevor Hamilton’s previous convictions.

The judge, Mr Justice McLaughlin, told Hamilton that he intended to pass possibly the longest life sentence ever passed in the courts.

“There’s a very real possibility you will never be released in your own lifetime,” he said.

“You can be sure it will be a long day before you see freedom again.”