Police overwhelmed by public response to Robert Hart appeal

Robert Hart detectives issue new appeal one year on

Police investigating the death of Robert Hart at the Parklife Weekender Festival have been overwhelmed by the public response to the new appeal for information.

Robert, 26, died on Wednesday 11 June 2014, five days after the assault at the music festival which left him fighting for life with a bleed on the brain.

It is a little over a year since the attack - which occurred on 7 June 2014 - and Greater Manchester Police are still hunting the man responsible.

Officers have interviewed more than 200 potential suspects and witnesses in the 12 months since, and have trawled through hundreds of hours of video footage and photographs in a bid to identify the offender.

In a campaign targeting festival-goers returning to the Parklife Weekender on the 6th and 7th June 2015, GMP issued a fresh appeal for information, pictures and videos to be sent to helpbobby@gmp.police.uk and started the hashtag #helpbobby on social media.

As a result of this new campaign, more than 160 emails were sent to the helpbobby@gmp.police.uk email address, containing more than 500 new images and several pieces of video footage for detectives to forensically examine.

But most importantly, 11 new names were submitted to officers as potential suspects, giving detectives fresh angles to investigate as the anniversary of Robert’s death approaches.

The senior investigating officer, Det Supt Phil Reade said: “Once again I would like to express Greater Manchester Police’s thanks to those members of the public who responded so brilliantly to our new appeal for information.

“We are still getting emails in to the helpbobby@gmp.police.uk email address and have started looking in detail at each of the new photos and videos sent in by last year’s Parklife attendees.

“There has been a wealth of new information sent into us over the weekend, and the public can rest assured that we will be following each of these new leads to the fullest extent in a bid to try and identify Robert’s attacker.

“But there is still time for people to help Robert and his family by assisting this investigation.

“Once again, if you attended Parklife festival in 2014, send any pictures, video or information you have to helpbobby@gmp.police.uk and help us get justice for Robert.”

A £23,000 reward offered by the Parklife organisers and Crimestoppers remains available to anyone who provides information which leads to the conviction of Robert’s attacker.

Anyone with information can contact the incident room direct on 0161 856 9283 or email the incident room on helpbobby@gmp.police.uk with any relevant footage.
Alternatively you can call police on 101 or independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.