19 cops called as witnesses in Arkinson civil case

NINETEEN police witnesses have been called to give evidence in a case brought against Chief Constable George Hamilton by the sister of murdered schoolgirl Arlene Arkinson.

Kathleen Arkinson has launched a civil action against the PSNI for the alleged way she was treated by officers investigating her sister’s disappearance more than 20 years ago.

Police dug up the bereaved sister’s garden and searched her home following a false tip-off that Arlene was buried there.

During a brief hearing at a civil court in Omagh it emerged that 23 witnesses are to give evidence in Ms Arkinson’s case against the PSNI.

Nineteen of those witnesses are police witnesses, the court was told.

Several of the PSNI’s witnesses flew in from London for the civil hearing due to take place yesterday.

However, it had to be adjourned until September after the court was told the case would likely take three days.

Fifteen-year-old Arlene, from Castlederg, Co Tyrone, vanished after a night out at a disco across the border in Co Donegal in 1994.

She was last seen with child killer Robert Howard, who died in prison in 2015.

He was acquitted of the teenager’s murder by a jury that was unaware of his previous conviction for murdering 14-year-old Hannah Williams, whose body was found in an industrial area close to the Thames Estuary.

Howard always remained the PSNI’s prime suspect in the Arkinson case.