Jailing 70-year-old retired RUC Reserve Constable Robert Cecil Atkinson at Craigavon Crown Court, Judge Patrick Lynch KC told the pensioner “it’s a disgrace that you as a serving police officer should stoop so low as to deliberately mislead an investigation which you knew concerned a serious assault you had witnessed. "Ultimately it turned into a murder enquiry where the son of the household you contacted was a suspect,” the judge told Atkinson, highlighting that the pensioner “is the only person in this courtroom” who could shed light on the contents of that call. Advertisement Advertisement Did you know with an ad-lite subscription to NorthernIrelandWorld, you get 70% fewer ads while viewing the news that matters to you.
Judge Lynch added however that Atkinson has never shown any co-operation and “even now will not shed light on the fateful phone call. "The public are entitled to expect the highest degree of probity from those entrusted to police and enforce the law,” the judge told Atkinson and declared: “You have been a disgrace to the uniform. "You continued to serve as a police officer for years afterwards as a criminal because there’s no other description for you.
It would seem to me and the wider general public to be an affront if you, the pro-generator and the beneficiary of the wider conspiracy should escape the fate of Mr McKee who ended up in prison serving a sentence of six months,” the judge concluded. On the second day of his trial last Apri.