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21 - 25 JANUARY 2002
SUMMARY OF EVIDENCE
This week, the Tribunal heard evidence from John Hume MP, who was MP for Foyle at the time of Bloody Sunday. Mr Hume was not present at the march having withdrawn his support due to concerns over the potential brutal conduct of the Parachute Regiment.
Kathleen Keville gave evidence concerning the taped statements she took from eyewitnesses on 30 and 31 January 1972, and Bernard Doyle, who did not attend the march, told the Inquiry of what he saw and heard from his home in Glenfada Park. Thomas Barr, who was involved with NICRA at the time, was also absent from the march, having been stopped and detained by soldiers on his way to Derry to attend the march.
William O’Connell was involved in the taking of witness statements in the days following Bloody Sunday. He was also one of those responsible for setting up a listening station to tape army and police communications on the day.
James Porter taped army and police communications throughout Bloody Sunday, evidence which had been offered to, and refused by, the Widgery Tribunal. He told the Inquiry how he had been threatened with charges of spying by officials at the earlier tribunal.
Stephen Peak was fired upon by a gunman he identified as a soldier in a derelict building near Abbey Park and Doctor McCabe attended to some of the ‘minor’ injuries sustained. He also gave evidence regarding the treatment of bodies in the morgue.
Sean McDermott and Hugh Deenan were in the Order of the Knights of Malta and attended to the wounded on Bloody Sunday. Hugh Deenan saw Martin McGuinness in a portakabin in the Creggan in the early afternoon, and did not see him leave the area.
Pat Cashman was a photographer with the Irish Press who was hit by a rubber bullet aimed directly at him. Christopher Doherty witnessed a lot of the shooting, and saw Mr Nash being shot. He was arrested in Glenfada Park North and taken to Fort George.
Julien Daly was fired upon from the Walls on the day. He also heard somebody suggesting that a wounded man should be taken to Letterkenny Hospital.
Noel Millar witnessed Barney McGuigan being shot, and Charlie Lomberton saw Michael Kelly being injured at the rubber barricade before later seeing the bodies of Gerard McKinney and Gerard Donaghy.
Charles McGuigan, whose father, Barney, was killed on the day made an appeal to the soldiers responsible for his father’s death to tell the truth about what had happened.
OTHER ISSUES
Lord Saville announced that the Tribunal would relocate to Britain to hear the soldiers’ evidence in August / September 2002. The exact location of the move is yet to be determined. A video-link will be set up between the new location and Derry so that people in the city can watch the proceedings. The facilities in Derry are to be maintained so that the Inquiry can return without delay to complete as much of their work as possible.
Congratulations were extended by the Tribunal to Mr Brian Kennedy, acting for Mr Mickey Bradley and Mr Mickey Bridge, who was promoted to senior counsel before Christmas.
A full transcript of proceedings is available at http://www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk.
1. John Hume MP’s Evidence
1.1 Questions on behalf of the Tribunal
John Hume was MP for Foyle at the time of Bloody Sunday. He withdrew his support for the civil rights march that took place in Derry on Bloody Sunday following his experiences at Magilligan Strand.
1.1.1 Background to the civil rights movement
Mr Hume explained the background to the Civil Rights Movement and the reason why both the Magilligan and the Bloody Sunday marches had been called. He said that the injustices in Northern Ireland at that time were dreadful and that Derry was the worst hit of all. Elected politicians had been unable to achieve any changes to the situation from the Unionist Government.
1.1.1.1 Gerrymandering and discrimination in voting
Derry was 70% nationalist and 30% unionist, yet it was governed by Unionists by a system of gerrymander from 1920 until Stormont fell. They divided the town into three districts: two of those districts were Unionist, although they only contained 30% of the voters, and elected 6 councillors each. The nationalist district, which contained 70% of the voters, elected eight.
There was discrimination in voting as only rate or rent payers were entitled to a vote; somebody living with their parents was not entitled to vote, whereas the owner of a limited company was entitled to six votes in addition to their personal vote. On one occasion, the mayor of the city owned seven limited companies so he controlled 42 votes plus his own which made 43.
When Mr Hume was elected to Westminster, he was the first
ever from the nationalist community to be elected to represent the Foyle.
1.1.1.2 Housing and unemployment
Local government in those days controlled housing so there was serious discrimination in housing as well. Families had to double or treble up in houses and Derry had the highest level of unemployment in Britain and Ireland. The unemployment rate was 35%.
1.1.1.3 Internment
According to Mr Hume, internment without trial was introduced by the Government of the day because people were seeking civil rights. This had in turn increased the anger of people considerably and led to the marches. The government had interned so many people they had to build a new prison on Magilligan Strand and the march at Magilligan was an attempt to show those interned without trial that they were not forgotten.
1.1.1.4 Ethos of the civil rights movement
All of these injustices combined led to the civil rights movement of the 1970s which was inspired by the civil rights movement in the USA, led by Martin Luther King.
The movement was totally committed to peaceful methods. It was not a political organisation and had support from many different parties, its objective being equality of treatment for all sectors of the community.
1.1.2 Magilligan Strand
Mr Hume explained that his experiences at Magilligan on the weekend before Bloody Sunday had led him to withdraw his support for the civil rights march in Derry on 30 January 1972.
He described his astonishment at finding the British Army set up on the beach behind barbed wire as the very reason for deciding to hold the march on the beach was to demonstrate in the clearest possible way the marchers’ intention to avoid trouble of any description. The view was that the peacefulness of the march would enable the message of the civil rights movement to get through to the world.
He told the Inquiry that the army attacked the marchers with CS gas and rubber bullets without any provocation whatsoever.
1.1.2.1 Confrontation with soldier
Mr Hume felt that the key piece of evidence he had to give to the BSI resulted from an altercation with a British Officer on Magilligan Strand. Mr Hume asked the officer why the army was attacking a peaceful crowd. The officer responded ‘Your Government sent us here’. Mr Hume said that this was clear proof that it was the Northern Ireland Government, as opposed to Westminster, that had ordered the army onto the beach and given them the order to attack.
According to Mr Hume, this is the key question that the BSI should be looking to answer about Bloody Sunday: who sent the British Army onto the streets of Derry and what orders were given to them?
1.1.2.2 Lack of army discipline
Mr Hume was asked whether he recalled an incident on the beach, given in evidence by Mr Bernard Gillespie, when an army officer had to beat a soldier’s hands with a baton to make him drop a baton gun he was firing indiscriminately at the crowd. Mr Hume said he remembered having a strong argument with the Commanding Officer about soldiers doing exactly such things.
1.1.3 Withdrawal of support for Derry civil rights march
Mr Hume felt that if the army was firing rubber bullets and gas on a beach with no form of provocation from the civil rights marchers, then there could be no telling what they would do on the streets of a city. He therefore withdrew his support for the civil rights march in Derry, despite having previously agreed to speak at the selfsame march.
During the week following Magilligan, he called a meeting of his own party members in the Ardoyne Hotel in Derry to tell them that the party now opposed the march due to fears for the safety of civilians arising out of the attitude of the army at Magilligan. He also met privately with some of the march organisers to share his fears with them.
Mr Hume said that he did not take part in the march, did not support it and did not help organise it in any way. He felt that his views regarding the march were widely known.
1.1.4 Politics of the civil rights movement
Mr Hume rejected the suggestion that he ever held or expressed the view that the Derry Civil Rights movement was politically dangerous.
He said that there existed a number of different civil rights movements at that time: the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), which was Belfast-based, the Derry Civil Rights Association and the Derry Citizens Action Committee. The latter had been set up to counter the perceived Belfast bias of NICRA: it was made up of people who were from Derry and knew the city and the area.
Mr Hume said that he had some differences of opinion on political matters with the Derry Civil Rights Association but that this was normal given the fact that it was made up of people from different political groups.
1.1.5 IRA assurances
Mr Hume said that he did not receive any assurances from four members of the IRA that the IRA would confine itself to the Creggan. He said that he would not even have known four members of the IRA at that time as they were a very secret organisation and people did not know who they were, apart from Martin McGuinness.
1.1.6 Events of Bloody Sunday
Mr Hume said that people had come up to his house in a panic, trying to find out what had happened to members of their family. He went to the hospital to try to find out what was going on, where he was initially stopped by soldiers but eventually allowed through. Dr Harvey gave him the list of names of the dead which he brought home.
The McDaid family was at his home on his return. Mr Hume stated that he knew Michael McDaid well. As Michael’s name was not on the list, Mr Hume reassured his parents that Michael was not dead and they left and went home. Shortly afterwards, Dr Harvey rang to tell him that Michael’s body was indeed at the hospital, and Mr Hume then had to go down to tell Michael’s parents that he had made a mistake and that Michael was dead.
Mr Hume said that Bloody Sunday was the worst day in the history of the city in his lifetime.
1.1.7 Statements and interviews
Mr Hume said that there was an enormous amount of media present after Bloody Sunday and he gave a number of statements. However, he was not personally involved in taking statements from eyewitnesses.
1.1.8 Bodies secreted away
Mr Hume did not remember any rumour about two additional bodies being secreted away. He further said that if there had been any truth in such a rumour, people would have found out as such a thing could not happen secretly in a small city like Derry.
1.1.9 Security services transmission recordings
Mr Hume said that he had not been given tapes by Mr Porter to present to the Widgery Tribunal. He was opposed to the Widgery Tribunal and asked people not to give evidence as he had no faith in its independence or impartiality: a British judge who had himself been a commander in the British Army should not have been carrying out an inquiry into actions of the British Armed Forces in Derry.
1.1.10 August 1971 arrest and subsequent court case
Mr Hume said that in the August prior to Bloody Sunday, the British Army had arrived suddenly and unexpectedly on the streets of the Bogside in very large numbers. The people had all come out of their houses to see what was going on and there was a lot of tension.
Mr Hume had asked everyone to sit down on the street whilst he went to talk to the army. He had told the army that their presence was causing a large amount of tension and that if they left, the people would return to their homes. The commander thanked him for the information and the army left and the people got up to go home.
However, as they got to the top of the street, there was another huge group of soldiers coming into the area. Mr Hume got everyone to sit down again and approached the army. As he approached, he was fired upon by a water canon which knocked him to the ground. He explained what he had told to the Commander who responded that he was in charge. Mr Hume was knocked over once again, lifted up and arrested and charged.
Mr Hume refused to pay the fine imposed by the courts and challenged the ruling successfully. Mr Hume felt his appeal was a very important case as it ruled that it was unconstitutional for the British Army to act under the laws of Northern Ireland. They should in fact have been acting under the laws of the British Parliament. As a result of that ruling, the British Parliament had to introduce some rushed legislation to legalise retrospectively all that the British Army had done previously in Northern Ireland, including Bloody Sunday.
According to Mr Hume, this case stands as clear evidence of the fact that the British Army on the streets of Derry on Bloody Sunday was being commanded from Stormont.
1.2 Questions on behalf of the Families and Wounded
1.2.1 Army aggression on Magilligan Strand
Mr Hume said that he did not believe that the soldiers ‘ran amok’ at Magilligan: their Commanding Officers were with them and obviously told them how to behave. He also said he assumed that the officers themselves must have got the order to behave in such a manner from the Department of Defence.
1.2.2 Official complaint regarding army aggression on Magilligan Strand
Mr Hume made public statements about the army behaviour on Magilligan Strand but no official complaint, as there was nobody to make such a complaint to. The marches were precisely against the treatment afforded to the people of Northern Ireland by the Government of Northern Ireland, and it was that selfsame Government that was commanding the troops to act in this way.
1.2.3 Official enquiries made to the British and Stormont Governments
Mr Hume could not remember whether he made any official enquiries concerning the body responsible for dictating policy in relation to the deployment of armed forces in Northern Ireland at that time. However, he never received any information on this issue from the Stormont or Westminster governments, nor did he get any answer concerning the body responsible for sending the army onto Magilligan Strand and the streets of Derry.
1.2.4 Opposition to civil rights march
Mr Hume was told that a number of witnesses, including two of the wounded, Michael Bridge and Michael Bradley, were not aware at the time of his opposition to the march. Mr Hume said that he felt that people did know of his views, as he had spoken to his own party members and to the organisers of the march. He did not recall specifically making a public statement on the issue or a statement to the press, but felt that people did know his views as they knew to find him at home on the day.
1.3 Questions on Behalf of NICRA
1.3.1 Support for the civil rights march on Bloody Sunday
Mr Hume said that up until the march at Magilligan he was fully supportive of the Derry march due to take place on 30 January. It was his experiences at Magilligan which led him to oppose the march.
1.3.2 Meeting in the Ardoyne Hotel
Apart from party members, Mr Hume could not remember clearly who was present at the meeting, although he believed that the late Father Mulvey was there. He met with the executive committee of the civil rights association on a separate occasion.
1.3.3 Meeting with Civil Rights Association members
Mr Hume believes that he met with Brigid Bond who was organiser of the Derry Civil Rights Association and informed her of his opposition to the march.
1.3.4 Meeting with Superintendent Lagan
Mr Hume said that he had contact with Mr Lagan throughout the whole period and would have been very aware of his views on the issue. He did not remember the specifics of the conversations but believed that he would have complained about what happened and the fact that the army had taken over from the police. Mr Hume did not remember Mr Lagan expressing his personal views about the upcoming march on the 30 January.
1.3.5 Sit down protest in Derry in August 1971 and subsequent charge
Mr Hume said that this protest was a spontaneous reaction to the fact that so many soldiers appeared in the streets suddenly without reason. He said that following his arrest he was brought in front of the Derry Justices. Charlie Hill QC, his barrister, brought the case further.
Mr Hume believed that the ruling was very significant as it made clear that the British Army were acting under the command of the Northern Ireland Government, i.e. a government who were treating the minority of the people of Northern Ireland unjustly and could not be guaranteed to use the army impartially.
1.4 Questions on behalf of the soldiers
1.4.1 Magilligan Strand
1.4.1.1 Decision to walk on the beach
Mr Hume said the primary reason for holding the march on the beach was to demonstrate the marchers’ commitment to peaceful means. He agreed with counsel that a further factor of the decision to hold the march on the beach was the fact that there would be nothing for the civilians to potentially throw at the army.
1.4.1.2 Aggression from marchers
Mr Hume did not believe that people on the march had been planning to make an assault on the fence on the beach, as nobody knew such a fence existed until the day. Indeed, marchers were shocked to discover the fence preventing them from walking as they had hoped to get as close to the detainees as possible to make them aware that the march was taking place.
He explained that due to the ban on asking questions in the House of Commons about discrimination in Northern Ireland, the streets were the only place people were able to ask for equality for all sections of the community.
Mr Hume did not recall anybody suggesting that the marchers should ‘not break ranks and march on the fence’. However, he felt that all that would have been meant by such a statement was for people to keep calm and walk together as a big crowd towards a meeting point.
He rejected the suggestion that there was hand to hand fighting on both sides and said the aggression was started by the soldiers. They were fired upon with gas and rubber bullets. Nobody would have attempted anything on a beach, as there would have been nowhere to run to aside from into the water.
1.4.1.3 Altercation with army officer
Mr Hume agreed with Counsel for the soldiers that the point the Commanding Officer on the beach was trying to make to him was that he and his men were following orders. Mr Hume reiterated his belief that the key question was who was giving those orders.
Contrary to the suggestion of Counsel for the soldiers, when the officer said to Mr Hume that the orders came from ‘Your Government’ he could not have been talking about the Westminster Government as Mr Hume was not in Westminster until 1983. At the time in question, he was an MP in the Parliament of Northern Ireland.
1.4.2 Opposition to Bloody Sunday march
Mr Hume said his fears for Bloody Sunday were due to the potential army response to the march, not to the potential violence from marchers on the day. He said that there were always young people on the marches who lost their temper and threw stones, but that the vast majority of marchers were peaceful. He was worried that there would be a lot of gas and rubber bullets.
However, despite his concerns about possible behaviour from the army, he never imagined that they would open fire on the marchers with live ammunition and that 13 innocent people would lose their lives.
1.4.3 Meeting at the Ardoyne Hotel
Mr Hume confirmed that the SDLP organised the meeting. He could not remember how many people attended.
1.4.4 Rumour about bodies secreted away
Mr Hume said that there was a rumour on the day about additional bodies being secreted away. However, this was due to the extent of confusion and shock over what had happened. He said that the suggestion that the people had guns was nonsense. Anybody who knew anything about Northern Ireland would know that if any of the people killed had been members of the IRA, they would have had an IRA funeral. This has always and will always be the case.
To this day, he has never heard of any IRA gunman being shot on Bloody Sunday. If there had been any such activity, he would have heard about it from the people of the city. Mr Hume went on to say that on occasions where the IRA had killed people they did not intend to, they had always publicly told the truth about their involvement.
2. Kathleen keville’s evidence
At the time of Bloody Sunday, Ms Keville was staying with Brigid Bond, the organiser of the Derry Civil Rights Association. She had come to Derry as a researcher with an American film crew making a film about Northern Ireland, although the film crew had left Derry by 30th January. She had a tape recorder and tapes for a project of her own which was to be an oral history of ordinary people living through the Troubles.
2.1 QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE TRIBUNAL
2.1.1 Preparation for the march
Ms Keville helped to make approximately 100 armbands for stewards on the march but could not remember how those stewards were recruited.
2.1.2 IRA assurances
Ms Keville was not aware from general conversation what the IRA’s plans were for the day and never heard any concerns expressed about the possibility that the IRA might use the march as cover to attack the army.
2.1.3 Rerouting the march
Ms Keville remembers Mrs Bond receiving word from Superintendent Lagan that the march would not be allowed to proceed to the Guildhall and was aware that that the new destination was to be Free Derry Corner.
2.1.4 Arrival of the army
Ms Keville was stewarding the march at barrier 14 when Ms Ann Hope was struck by an object. She brought her to a house on Chamberlain Street where she received treatment from a Knight of Malta. Whilst in the house, Ms Keville went upstairs in the house to look out the window from where she could see the waste ground bordering Rossville Street.
She saw two army vehicles arrive on Rossville Street from the direction of William Street which made no sense to her as the disturbance on William Street had broken up after the army’s use of water canon and the deployment of CS gas. As soon as the vehicles stopped, the soldiers got out and in one continuous motion began to shoot in the direction of Free Derry Corner. At first she thought that they were firing rubber bullets but then saw their rifles.
2.1.5 Tape-recorded interviews
Ms Keville made her way back to Ms Bond’s house which was full of people. The suggestion was made that she make tape recorded statements from witnesses. Ms Keville was taken to Dr McClean’s surgery where she made the recordings on the night of Bloody Sunday and the following day.
No instructions were given to her as to how the interviews were to be conducted and she did not go into them with an agenda. The tapes had not been edited to omit references to a civilian gunman. Ms Keville said she was alone whilst taping the interviews, with the exception of the first few for which Ms Bond’s 11-year-old son was also present.
She did not know how people had heard that she was taping interviews, but there were people waiting for her when she arrived and a queue persisted throughout the time she took interviews. Nobody refused to be taped and, apart from one incident she vaguely recollected involving a young man not wanting to give his surname, nobody expressed unwillingness to give their names for fear, for example, of being arrested for rioting.
In total, Ms Keville personally recorded seven tapes of interviews. The Tribunal is also in possession of a further two tapes recorded by other people, apparently with the use of Ms Keville’s machine. The tapes were left with the Bonds after Bloody Sunday and Ms Keville had no involvement in transcribing them.
2.1.6 Notebook
Ms Keville recorded the names of the interviewees in a notebook, along with a summary of their relevant evidence. The original copy of this notebook was provided to the BSI. The only noticeable discrepancy between the tapes and the interviews is that the last interview noted in Ms Keville’s notebook does not feature on the tape. Ms Keville was not sure how this occurred, but believed she could have forgotten to press record as she had done on one previous occasion.
2.1.7 Hand-written statements
Ms Keville also helped take written witness statements in a school hall in Derry. She was not given any specific instructions about how to take them nor was she told to leave anything out from people’s accounts of the day.
2.2 Questions on Behalf of the Soldiers
2.2.1 ‘Ritualised rioting’
Ms Keville wrote in her statement for the Inquiry that she was aware of ‘ritualised rioting’ that took place between the Derry youths and the army at 4.00pm nearly every day. She explained that her choice of words reflected how she had heard the incidents being described to her by locals: the rioting occurred like clockwork, starting at 4.00 and finishing at 4.15. She was not attempting to trivialise what was going on. She regarded it at the time as a gesture of anger.
2.2.2 Notebooks
Ms Keville said it had originally been her intention to take notes during the interviews. However, she had felt it more appropriate to pay attention to the people talking to her, as it would be a form of discourtesy to take notes whilst they were speaking and might distract them in what they were saying.
Within 48 hours of taping the interviews, she listened to them and tried to make summaries of the salient points of each interview so that they could be easily categorised. It was her belief that NICRA was going to transcribe the tapes and get signatures from witnesses. She believes the reason this never happened is that she took the tape recorder when she returned to London, and there must not have been another one available.
3. SEAN McDERMOTT’S evidence
3.1 Questions on behalf of the Tribunal
Mr McDermott was a Knight of Malta who attended to some of the injured on Bloody Sunday.
3.1.1 Barrier 14
Mr McDermott could no longer recall a number of the incidents he described in his contemporaneous statement, such as two men being shot near Barrier 14. He clarified for the Inquiry that he had meant to say in his 1972 statement that he saw the army firing gas canisters at the crowd, but had erroneously said the opposite. He did not hear or see any nail bombs or petrol bombs during the time he spent at Barrier 14.
3.1.2 Columbcille Court
When the army opened fire, Mr McDermott ran to Columbcille Court where he saw a lone soldier who raised his gun and aimed it at him but did not fire. Throughout this time he could hear high velocity fire.
3.1.3 Gerard McKinney
Mr McDermott treated a man on the steps outside Glenfada Park. He originally believed him to have had a heart attack, so he and Robert Cadman administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and performed a heart massage. However, it transpired that the man, whom he later discovered to have been Gerard McKinney, had been struck dead by a bullet.
3.1.4 Glenfada Park North
Mr McDermott followed a fellow Knight of Malta, Eibhlín Lafferty, into Glenfada Park North. She had her hands raised and was shouting: “first aid, don’t shoot.” Mr McDermott saw sparks on the ground around Ms Lafferty’s feet caused by bullets striking the ground. He then saw three other bodies lying in the courtyard, including the body of Jim Wray. There were two soldiers in the corner of the courtyard who appeared to be laughing.
He shouted for people to call an ambulance, and it arrived approximately 30 minutes later. He recalled two bodies already being in the ambulance when it arrived.
3.2 Questions on behalf of the families and wounded
3.2.1 Jim Wray
Mr Harvey QC, representing the family of Jim Wray, extended their thanks for Mr McDermott’s efforts to save him. He further asked why Mr McDermott had failed to mention Mr Wray’s name in his 1972 statement. Mr McDermott thought that he did not recognise Mr Wray at the time, due to his confusion and panic.
3.3 Questions on Behalf of the Soldiers
3.3.1 Collective memory
Due to the fact that there was some difference between Mr McDermott’s statement to the Tribunal and his contemporaneous taped statement, Mr P. Clarke questioned him about how he distinguished between what he actually remembered, what he saw himself and what he had heard from others. Mr McDermott said that today was the first time he had heard the taped interview and that he could not even recollect making such a taped statement. What he had told the Tribunal was what he now recalled of the events.
3.3.2 Glenfada Park
Mr McDermott had stated in his contemporaneous statement that he had seen seven bodies in Glenfada Park. He said he believed he was mistaken on this as he now clearly remembers seeing only three.
4. BERNARD DOYLE’S EVIDENCE
4.1 Questions on behalf of the Inquiry
4.1.1 Glenfada Park North
Mr Doyle did not go to the march and was gardening in his front garden in Glenfada Park North when he heard high velocity shots from an Armalite from the Columbcille Court area. He saw people running from Glenfada Park North across Columbcille Court in the direction of his house. A number of those people ran into his house for shelter. He saw Jim Wray and beckoned to him to go into his house. However, Jim Wray continued past his house and was tripped up by a soldier who was chasing him. He said he saw the soldier pointing an Armalite at Mr Wray but did not see him being shot.
4.1.2 Petrol bombs
Mr Doyle said he saw two petrol bombs being thrown at soldiers from a derelict flat at the top of the Rossville Flats after he saw Jim Wray.
4.1.3 IRA involvement
Mr Doyle said that he had a friend, Mr Jim Doherty, who was in the Provisional IRA at the time of Bloody Sunday. He said that Mr Doherty had told him that the Provisional IRA had been given the order to stay away. He said he would not answer any further questions about the Provisional IRA or the Official IRA.
4.2 Questions on behalf of the soldiers
4.2.1 IRA involvement
Mr Doyle said that he had seen no Official IRA or Provisional IRA members with weapons on the day and said that the army were the only ones to open fire.
5. THOMAS WILLIAM BARR’S EVIDENCE
Thomas Barr was involved with NICRA at the time of Bloody Sunday. He was stopped and detained on his way to the march in Derry and therefore did not make it to the march.
5.1 Questions on Behalf of the Tribunal
5.1.1 NICRA activities
Mr Barr attended one NICRA Executive Committee meeting prior to Bloody Sunday on behalf of his brother who had been interned.
5.1.2 Knowledge of IRA
Mr Barr was asked about his knowledge of IRA membership and activities in Derry and Strabane. He told the Inquiry that it was widely known that members of NICRA had made contact with the IRA and had been assured that the march would be peaceful: he believes he got this information at Brigid Bond’s house, but further stated that everybody knew that this was the situation. He himself did not know who was a member of a paramilitary organisation at that time.
5.2 Questions on Behalf of the Soldiers
5.2.1 NICRA activities
Mr Barr said that, in addition to the Executive Committee meeting he attended on behalf of his brother, he was also involved in fundraising activities for NICRA in London.
5.2.2 Arrest and detention on 30 January 1972
In the absence of documentation concerning Mr Barr’s arrest and subsequent detention and interrogation at Ballykelly, Mr Glasgow asked Mr Barr why he believed he had been stopped. Mr Barr said that he did not know whether the sole reason he and his three companions were arrested was to prevent them going to the march. He did believe that the soldiers had got orders from the police to detain them.
5.2.3 Knowledge of the IRA
Mr Barr reiterated that he would only be able to speculate as to who might have been a member of a paramilitary organisation at the time of Bloody Sunday. He was not prepared to do that.
6. William Francis O’Connell’s Evidence
At the time of Bloody Sunday, Mr O’Connell was a committee member of the Internee Dependents’ Fund, set up to raise money for dependents of those interned. He was also secretary of the Derry Citizens’ Council, the aim of which was to prevent the regular rioting in the William Street area. Prior to 1969 he had been involved in organising youth activities with the St Eugene’s Boys Club and the County Derry Amateur Boxing Board, through which he knew two of the dead, Jackie Duddy and William Nash. He was also a founding member of the SDLP and was secretary to the party in Derry. He later became major of Derry.
6.1 QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE TRIBUNAL
6.1.1 Magilligan Strand
Mr O’Connell told the Inquiry that he was present at the march at Magilligan and had seen marchers being attacked by soldiers and sustaining severe head wounds from soldiers’ batons. He did not agree that the use of force by soldiers only began after the crowd attempted to cross the wire fence set up by soldiers on the beach and believed that the soldiers were intent on stopping the peaceful march.
6.1.2 Rumours of a confrontation between the army and the IRA
Mr O’Connell said that, following Magilligan, there was a general expectation that there would be some sort of a confrontation around Aggro corner during the march on Bloody Sunday. The general feeling was that this was what the army anticipated and that they would try to encourage the IRA to confront them. He suggested that the expectation was that there might be some form of ‘shooting war’.
6.1.3 Listening stations
As a result of the general sense of trepidation, the Internee Dependents’ Fund decided to set up two listening stations in houses in the area to listen into army and police radio communications on Bloody Sunday. Mr O’Connell said that one of those stations was operated by Mr Porter although, under cross examination, he agreed that Mr Porter may have established his post prior to Bloody Sunday, as part of his duties for the Derry Citizen’s Council.
Mr O’Connell provided the Tribunal with the name and telephone number of the person living in the house in Jacqueline Way where the other listening post was established. It was his belief that the tapes made at the second listening post had been provided to Mr Porter.
6.1.4 Rossville Street
Mr O’Connell said that he saw two Saracens entering Rossville Street, one of which drove across the waste ground and stopped beyond Eden Place and the other of which headed towards the Rossville Flats. He recalls the second Saracen hitting a civilian, whom he now believes to be Alanna Burke, as it drew to a halt. Soldiers got out of the vehicle and started to fan out across Rossville Street.
6.1.5 Victoria Barracks police station
Mr O’Connell was sent with Michael Durey to Victoria Barracks by John Hume in order to find out what had happened to the people who had been arrested. He recalled seeing a number of police officers at the barracks, along with Superintendent Frank Lagan who did not look very happy. Mr Lagan informed him that the people had been taken to Fort George and would be released soon. He further told Mr O’Connell that they had been treated all right. There was no mention of anybody having been shot on the day.
6.1.6 Sisters-in-laws’ eye-witness accounts
Mr Clarke asked Mr O’Connell for the names of his sisters-in-law and their friend who had told him what they had seen whilst sheltering in the Long Tower Church with journalist Simon Winchester and local man Matt Morrison. Mr O’Connell informed the Tribunal that his sisters-in-law were Myra McGinley and Bernadette McAnee. He wrote the name of their friend on a piece of paper for the Inquiry.
6.1.7 Eye-witness statements
Mr O’Connell was involved in the decision by the Derry Citizens Council (DCC) to take statements from eyewitnesses to establish what had happened. The chairperson of the DCC, Michael Cavanan, was also involved in taking statements. They arranged for two QCs to take the statements. Mr O’Connell believed that Charlie Hill QC was one of those appointed. He recalled having personally taken approximately 20 to 30 statements, although the total number was more sizeable. These statements were different to those taken by NICRA and were provided to the Widgery Tribunal directly.
The statements were taken over a period of more than seven days following Bloody Sunday. He recalled some statements having been taken in the Ardoyne Hotel on Northland Road. Mr O’Connell acted as runner for the QCs on one day, and subsequently took statements himself by going from door to door in the Rossville Flats and along Rossville Street and asking people to provide him with a statement. Nobody he approached refused to give him information about particular things they had seen that day.
Mr O’Connell had attached a
copy of one of the statements he took to his own statement for the Inquiry.
He agreed to make copies of the statements still in his possession
available for the Inquiry.
6.2 QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE FAMILIES AND WOUNDED
6.2.1 Rumours of a confrontation between the army and the IRA
Mr O’Connell clarified that he had not expected the IRA to be drawn into shooting at the army. However, he said that following the attack on the marchers at Magilligan, there was a feeling that the army was in some way trying to encourage a confrontation between the IRA and the army on Bloody Sunday. He confirmed that he had not received any information suggesting that the IRA was willing to be drawn into such a confrontation.
6.3 QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE SOLDIERS
6.3.1 General sense of fear in the lead up to the Derry march
Mr Glasgow suggested that the fear that something bad would happen on the march that Mr O’Connell spoke about in his statement referred to the possible ‘shooting war’ between the soldiers and the IRA. Mr O’Connell said that this was not the case and that the fear he described related to the expectation that the Paras would behave in the same way they had done on Magilligan Strand.
6.3.2 Listening stations
Mr O’Connell said that listening posts were common in Derry at the time and that anyone who had a radio listened in to the army and the police. The listening station he set up was set up the night before the Derry march. He had been previously been informed that the tapes made at this station had been given to the BSI, but found out recently that they had in fact been given to Mr Porter.
The recordings made of army and RUC transmissions were to be used as a record of what happened on the day. Mr O’Connell said that there was no intention to pass the tapes on to any other party, nor did this occur.
6.3.3 Anonymity of witnesses
Mr Glasgow asked Mr O’Connell why he had felt the need to protect the identity of two of the people he named for the Inquiry by writing their names on a piece of paper. Mr O’Connell said that he was respecting the wishes of the person who made the recordings. He did not know whether other people were apprehensive or reluctant to come forward.
6.3.4 Rioting in William Street
Mr O’Connell heard rioting in William Street in the early stages of the afternoon as the march approached the barriers in William Street and Upper James Street. He himself was at Aggro Corner, at the junction of William Street and Rossville Street. He described hearing the sound of banging and breaking glass. He did not recall hearing rubber bullets, but felt that he would have heard them had they been fired.
Mr Glasgow asked whether there could be any other reason apart from the level of noise from the rioting that would have prevented him hearing the two live shots that were fired approximately 75 yards behind him, injuring two people. Mr O’Connell felt that the derelict buildings between him and where the shots were fired, coupled with the noise from the rioting would have muffled the sound of the shots.
6.3.5 Conversation with RUC officer
Mr O’Connell had made a remark to an RUC officer on the day that from then on, he would always have to wear his gun in Derry. Mr O’Connell said that he made this remark because he was upset and angry about what he had seen on the day. He felt that the actions of the army had left the RUC with a very difficult legacy in which they would have to work in the future.
6.3.6 Sisters-in-laws’ eye-witness accounts
Mr Glasgow told Mr O’Connell that, contrary to what Mr O’Connell’s sisters-in-law told him at the time, Mr Winchester had told the Inquiry that he did not feel that the shots that they all witnessed came from the city Walls. Mr O’Connell reiterated that the women had told him that they had been fired on from the Walls which would have been very prominent on the left-hand side of the churchyard in which they were sheltering.
6.3.7 General feeling towards the army in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday
In his statement to the BSI, Mr O’Connell wrote that in the aftermath of Bloody Sunday, nobody had any sympathy about anything that might happen to the Paras in the future. He disagreed with the fact that this lack of concern existed prior to the events of Bloody Sunday, recalling occasions when people from the nationalist community attended to soldiers who had been shot. He further disagreed with Mr Glasgow’s suggestion that crowds cheered when bodies of soldiers were carried away.
7. JAMES ANTHONY PORTER’S EVIDENCE
Mr Porter is a radio enthusiast and listened in to army and RUC communications in the years leading up to Bloody Sunday. He listened in to these transmissions on Bloody Sunday from his shop at 38 William Street and provided copies of his taped recordings to both the Widgery Inquiry and the BSI.
7.1 QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE TRIBUNAL
7.1.1 Military observation post on William Street
Mr Porter owned another shop at 26 William Street, the upper part of which was derelict. He told the Inquiry that the top floor of this shop had been used as a military observation post since 1971, as it afforded a view onto William Street and into the Bogside. People had seen army faces in the windows of the attic, causing it to be bombed on two occasions.
Mr Porter described how, on occasions prior to Bloody Sunday, he had seen the army arrive in Macari’s Lane to the side of the building in an armoured Pig, climb onto the roof of the Pig and use a ladder to gain access to the building. Mr Porter had seen army activity above his shop during the six months leading up to Bloody Sunday.
The building opposite above McLaughlin’s shoe store was also used as an observation post and it was from that building that a man named Starr had been shot on the corner of Chamberlain Street, prior to Bloody Sunday.
Mr Porter’s shop had a sign outside with the name ECKO which was a television brand at that time. Mr Porter believes that the call sign ‘Echo’, identified on the recordings made on Bloody Sunday, might have been transmitting from 26 William Street, as the army would indicate that they were looking out from a building in William Street and that they were observing the Bogside. ‘Echo’ was also used as the call sign from the Embassy Building.
7.1.2 Listening station
Mr Porter told the Inquiry that he had listened to police transmissions since 1968. He listened in for two reasons: firstly, he believed that history was being made in Northern Ireland at that time and wanted to get first class information about what was happening. Secondly, he used the transmissions to protect his property: he explained that if a riot occurred in or around William Street the police would usually telephone Protestant key holders to inform them of the riot so that they could try to protect their premises. However, they never called Catholic key holders. As Mr Porter was a Catholic, he decided to have his own hotline to the security forces so that he could go to his shop if he heard of any trouble.
Mr Porter regularly taped the recordings. He had, for example, taped all the transmissions during the Battle of the Bogside and had provided the tapes to the Scarman Tribunal.
7.1.3 Whereabouts of the tapes made on Bloody Sunday
Mr Porter confirmed Mr O’Connell’s testimony to the Tribunal that the tapes made at the other listening station that was active on Bloody Sunday had been given to him. The originals of his own 17 or 18 tapes were deposited with a friend in the Republic of Ireland for safekeeping. The tapes made by the other listening post were identical to those made by Mr Porter and as such were kept in his shop in case anybody wanted to listen to them. These tapes were destroyed, along with photographs and an army baton, in July 1972 when Mr Porter’s shop was petrol bombed.
7.1.4 Recordings of transmissions on 28th January 1972
Mr Porter commented on a taped transmission made two days before Bloody Sunday which recorded a soldier being given orders to shoot a man dead in the William Street area. The soldier had informed base that a nail bomb had been thrown from behind a wall beside the Grandstand Bar, but did not explode.
Mr Porter drew the Inquiry’s attention to the fact that the soldiers first refer to the man as having thrown a gelly bomb, and subsequently call it a nail bomb. The soldier who identified it as a nail bomb was approximately 100 yard away.
A man came into view whom the soldier identified as the person who had thrown the bomb and was given the order to ‘shoot him dead’. Mr Porter believed in fact that there was no bomb thrown at all. He went down to the area with his camera and carefully examined the surroundings but saw no evidence of a bomb of any description. He also said that ‘Felix’, the army technical officer who was usually called to dispose of such bombs, was not called to the scene. Mr Porter said it was his belief that the youth had thrown a firework or a brick.
7.1.5 Recordings of transmissions on 29th January 1972
Mr Porter also taped transmissions on 29th January which recorded details of a man hit by army fire in the same general area as where the army had been told to shoot dead the rioter on the previous day. Once again, Mr Porter left his shop to photograph the area: by that stage the army had left but he took a photo of the general area.
He told the Inquiry that on a different occasion that day, he also heard the army report a large explosion from the rear of the city baths. It was assumed that a bomb had exploded accidentally and that there was the possibility of casualties. On Bloody Sunday, there was mention on the transmissions that there was a report of a child being killed and carried out of the Bogside. The transmissions seemed to suggest that the army thought that this child was killed by the bomb the previous day.
7.1.6 Nets and frequencies in use on Bloody Sunday
Mr Porter said that there were at least two nets theoretically available on Bloody Sunday: the Brigade Net and the Secure net. He told the Inquiry that the name ‘Secure net’ was a misnomer in that anyone could listen to it: if it was being used in a built up area, people received it through their television sets as the frequency used by the army was allied to some of the television frequencies used at the time.
Mr Porter told the Inquiry that he was able to calculate the frequency being used by the army by looking at the length of the aerials on the army vans or backpacks: a trained eye can work out the frequency by looking at the length of the aerial in use.
Mr Porter said that he would have been able to tell if something was being transmitted in cryptic or scrambled form that day, although he would not have been able to decode it. He rejected the suggestion that when using a secret device the army might keep the aerial secret. According to Mr Porter, in order for an aerial to have been able to transmit, it would have had to be in the open, especially in built-up areas.
Mr Clarke told Mr Porter that there was a lot of evidence in existence suggesting that the army had used a BID 150 Encryption Unit linked to a Larkspur radio as the secure means of communication on that day. Mr Porter said he had learnt about that since Bloody Sunday.
7.1.7 Receivers and tape recorders used on Bloody Sunday
Mr Porter explained that he had two tape recorders running on Bloody Sunday: the recorder recording army transmissions was set up to respond only when there was actual transmission. The police recorder was ‘in real time’. The army recorder was tuned into the Brigade Net. Mr Porter also tapped into the secure net intermittently with the use of a third transmitter, but did not record those transmissions.
He also had other receivers that were tuned into other frequencies that the army used at the time which scanned over a range of frequencies and automatically picked up any frequency being used within a specified range.
7.1.8 Shots fired on William Street
Mr Porter heard approximately three or four rifle shots fired in upper William Street at approximately 3:55pm on the afternoon of Bloody Sunday. These were the first shots he heard on the day. He said that there was nothing about these shots on the army radio. Mr Porter went on to say that he had been listening in to the transmissions since approximately 2 o’clock on the day, and had heard every minute detail of what was happening being reported back to brigade headquarters, such as people coming out of doors, the number of people standing at a corner, etc. However, despite upwards of 200 shots being fired on the day, the radio was entirely silent on this matter.
Despite the shots, an army transmission from ‘Nine Zero (90) Alpha’ states shortly after 3:55 that ‘all is peaceful’. In light of this, Mr Clarke asked Mr Porter whether he was sure of the timing of the shots. Mr Porter confirmed that he was.
7.1.9 Rioting on William Street?
Mr Porter was looking out of his window and saw that William Street was empty. At the same time, a message came from command asking ‘90 Alpha’ whether there was still a ‘hooligan element’ in the area of William Street, to which ’90 Alpha’ responds yes.
Mr Porter told the Inquiry that the response is hesitant, as if 90 Alpha was not really certain whether there was anyone in William Street or not. It was his belief that the soldier answered yes so as to please the person with whom he was speaking. Mr Porter went down into William Street to take a picture of the deserted street, although he agreed that he could not see what was going on at the eastern end of William Street.
7.1.10 Arrival of Paratroopers in William Street
Mr Porter described seeing about 100 paratroopers entering William Street through barrier 14, followed by a man he understood to be General Ford waving a stick and shouting. He then saw a dozen paratroopers go into and around the alcove of Mr Gorman’s shop on William Street, whilst other Paras filtered into the Bogside area via Chamberlain Street and Isaac’s Lane.
Mr Porter said that, despite General Ford’s own account of not going through Barrier 14 at that stage, he was sure that he had seen him outside his window at that time. Although he did not immediately recognise General Ford, he saw him on the television on the evening of Bloody Sunday and recognised him as the officer in battle dress who had been shouting orders to soldiers outside his window. Mr Porter saw General Ford leave William Street with his radio operator and other soldiers approximately five minutes later, after the first shots were fired from Chamberlain Street into the Bogside.
7.1.11 Radio command post
It was Mr Porter’s belief that the Paras in the alcove of Mr Gorman’s shop in William Street constituted the radio command for the operation for a number of reasons:
· An army radio vehicle, identified by the fact that it had two aerials mounted on the roof, came through Barrier 14 and parked about 10 yards away from the Paras towards Aggro corner
· Mr Gorman’s chemist shop appeared to be the main focal point for Paras on the ground
· Transmissions were of such strength that they were overloading the receiving equipment, indicating that they had to be within a 100 yard radius
7.1.12 Waste ground near Eden Place
Mr Porter described that he saw the bulk of the paratroopers who had entered via Barrier 14 running via Eden Place towards the waste ground. There were approximately 200 to 300 civilians on the waste ground running and attempting to take cover.
Mr Porter later looked out of his window and saw armoured vehicles and about 100 troops in the waste ground. He described one vehicle as careering around the waste ground. Mr Porter formed the opinion that the driver was deliberately trying to hit people with it. One person was hit but got up and ran away.
7.1.13 Chamberlain Street
Mr Porter left his shop and walked towards Chamberlain Street past four or five pigs (armoured vehicles) parked in front of his shop in William Street. There were no civilians in William Street at this stage. He was expecting to see two bodies on Chamberlain Street, as he had just heard on the army transmission, but saw only residents, reporters and a few soldiers who were standing at the corner of Chamberlain Street and William Street.
7.1.14 Aggro Corner
The army transmission states that C Company had come through barrier 14 at this stage. However, when Mr Porter returned to his shop, he could see only 12 paratroopers at Aggro Corner, most of whom appeared to be drivers of the army vehicles parked next to them.
7.1.15 Presbyterian Church
Mr Porter saw Support Company leaving the Presbyterian Church. A group of approximately a dozen of these soldiers climbed over the rear wall of the church and over the flat roof down into William Street and crossed into Kells Walk.
7.1.16 First shots fired in the Bogside
The first live fire that Mr Porter heard on Bloody Sunday after the troops entered the Bogside consisted of three or four shots which appeared to come from the direction of Chamberlain Street. He explained that the height of the Rossville flats caused the sound of the shots to echo and re-echo. Shortly afterwards, the army radio transmission records a message saying that four shots were fired at the army and that they had returned fire with two high velocity rounds.
Mr Porter’s analysis of the situation was that the soldier in question fired two shots, one towards the Rossville flats and another which hit a wall in Chamberlain Street. He did not believe that shots could have been returned at a gunman by the Bogside Inn, as the area was full of people returning home after the march.
7.1.17 Captain from Royal Anglian Regiment
Mr Porter left his shop and went to the corner of William Street and Chamberlain Street where a small group of people had gathered. A captain from the Royal Anglian Regiment was telling a journalist that some people had shot dead a young boy and had dumped the body to discredit the army.
7.1.18 Graffiti
When Mr Porter returned to his shop, there were still a number of paratroopers on the street outside. He observed one of the paratroopers writing something on the shutter at the front of the shop. He took a photograph of this area in the days following Bloody Sunday, in the presence of Mr Gorman, which showed graffiti on the shutter saying something to the effect of: ‘Paras were here and they fucking hammered the fuck out of you’.
He later told the Tribunal that within minutes of taking the photograph of the graffiti, an unmarked van pulled up and men in identical boiler suits, short hair and brightly polished boots got out, took down the offending shutter, loaded it into the van and drove away.
7.1.19 Doctored baton
When Mr Porter returned to the scene where he had witnessed the paratroopers writing on the shutter, he saw a baton propped up against the shutter. A hole of approximately four or five inches had been drilled in the baton and had been filled with lead to give weight to the end of the baton. The baton had a name and a regimental number on it. Mr Porter also took a photograph of this item, although this was later destroyed in a petrol bomb attack on his shop.
7.1.20 Number of shots fired on Bloody Sunday
Mr Porter was of the belief that over 200 high velocity shots were fired in the Bogside on Bloody Sunday.
7.1.21 Sound of machine-gun fire
On Bloody Sunday, Mr Porter noticed helicopters, hovering above the Bogside, altering the pitch of their blades in order to maintain a constant height. This produced a sound that was similar to low velocity machine gun fire, although Mr Porter was able to correctly identify the sound on the day due to his experience listening to such helicopters.
7.1.22 Gerard Donaghy
Mr Porter was allowed to play a portion of his tapes which referred to the nail bombs allegedly found on the body of Gerard Donaghy. The tape clearly stated that one single nail bomb had been found on the body, as opposed to several bombs.
7.1.23 Copies of tapes given to RTE
Mr Porter was contacted by a friend of his who was Head of News at RTE and asked for copies of his tapes. A week after providing the copies to RTE, he was visited by the Deputy General of RTE who asked for his permission to make transcripts of the tapes for the Widgery Tribunal. It was Mr Porter’s belief that the transcripts were made by the Irish Department of Justice.
7.1.24 Army receiver used on Bloody Sunday
Mr Porter was given an AR43 Mark II receiver by one of his pupils at the Londonderry Technical College who was in the army. He was told that it was the secure link transceiver that had been used in the army headquarters in Ebrington Barracks on Bloody Sunday.
However, the Tribunal has received evidence that the AR43 radio was not in general use at the time of Bloody Sunday as it was developed specifically to enable communication between aircraft helicopters and forces on the ground. Mr Porter agreed that his student might have been mistaken.
7.1.25 Photograph of Mrs McCartney’s house
In February 1972, Mr Hill, Counsel for the families at the Widgery Tribunal, asked Mr Porter to visit Mrs McCartney’s house at 57 Glenfada Park to take a photograph of the window of her flat through which a soldier had claimed to have fired 19 bullets on Bloody Sunday. Mr Porter took six or seven photographs and gave all but one of them to Mr Hill. Mr Porter provided the remaining photograph in his possession to the BSI.
The photograph provided by Mr Porter did not appear to correspond with other photographs of the Glenfada Park flats, suggesting that it was not in fact a photograph of Mrs McCartney’s house.
7.2 Questions on behalf of the families and wounded
7.2.1 Secure BID encryption device
Mr Macdonald asked Mr Clarke to explain exactly what he was referring to when he said that the Tribunal had received a significant amount of documentary evidence that the army had used the BID encryption device as their secure link on Bloody Sunday. It was Mr Macdonald’s belief that he was not in possession of any such evidence.
Mr Clarke said that the only evidence in the Tribunal’s possession of statements from soldiers saying that it was in use on the day, and a memorandum indicating that the Brigade were hoping to receive such a device. He confirmed that the Tribunal had not received any document either acknowledging receipt of the encryption unit or referring to it having arrived.
7.2.2 Secure net
Mr Porter said that specific communications he listened into on the high frequency transmission he located prior to Bloody Sunday led him to believe that it was the secure net being used by the army as opposed to the usual Brigade Net. He last heard communications on this frequency in the days leading up to Bloody Sunday.
He told the Inquiry that on Bloody Sunday there was a fault with the Secure net and that soldiers on the ground did not appear able to locate the faulty equipment. He taped Lt Col Wilford telling the various soldiers on the ground to check their equipment, but nobody reported that their equipment was faulty.
7.2.3 Frequencies used by the army
Mr Porter told the Inquiry that the army transmitted on a limited range of frequencies: large numbers of the band were already used for commercial purposes such as radio telephones, broadcast stations, vets, etc., and this meant that only a very narrow range of frequencies was available to the army and police.
The police and army tended to transmit within three narrow band ranges, the Secure net being located on one of the higher frequencies as people would not normally have had the equipment to be able to listen into it.
7.2.4 Communications from soldiers in danger
Mr Porter said that from his experience of listening into army communications prior to Bloody Sunday, it was standard practice for soldiers to make very detailed radio reports when they came under attack from gunmen or people throwing nail bombs or petrol bombs. The reports relayed over the Brigade Net would provide a grid reference point locating the spot from where the alleged firing had come and would also provide a description of the alleged offender. This never happened on Bloody Sunday.
7.2.5 Suppression of evidence at the Widgery Tribunal
Mr Porter said that it was clear to him when he offered his tapes to the Widgery Inquiry that they did not want to hear his evidence. Mr Porter had been brought into a room where there were a number of officials from the Tribunal, including a Mr Stocker and an army officer.
A squaddie was called in to test Mr Porter’s knowledge of aerials and radio transmitters: he carried a backpack on his back from which there was an aerial protruding. Mr Porter was asked whether he could identify the frequency at which it was transmitting. He answered correctly and the soldier left.
Mr Porter had expected to be congratulated for providing such valuable evidence to the Widgery Tribunal but instead was told that he had acted improperly. He described the attitude in the room as hostile towards him. Lord Widgery then entered the room and repeated the questions he had already been asked by people in the room concerning why and how he had made the recordings. Mr Porter said that it was suggested at one stage that he was fronting for the IRA.
Mr Porter played a portion of one of his tapes to the group in the room, made on the Friday before Bloody Sunday, which recorded the army getting the order to shoot dead a man said to have thrown a nail bomb. He said that a murmur of surprise went round the room at this stage due to the clarity of the recording.
He offered his tapes to Lord Widgery who responded that he was tired of hearing about Mr Porter’s tapes and that the Inquiry was over. Mr Porter realised that he had been called at the last minute on the last day of the Inquiry. His evidence was never called.
7.2.6 Appropriateness of Mr Macdonald’s questioning concerning Widgery
Lord Saville questioned the appropriateness of Mr Macdonald’s line of questioning, reiterating the remark he made in his opening statement to the effect that it was outside the scope of the BSI to examine the Widgery Tribunal.
Mr Macdonald said that the issue of suppression of evidence before the Widgery Tribunal was still a live issue for the BSI, in particular with regard to the pending application for an interlocutory hearing in relation to the concealment, destruction or disappearance of army photographic and cine film evidence taken on Bloody Sunday. Two of the people directly involved in the questions being raised about the content of the cine film are Mr Smith, Secretary to the Widgery Tribunal, and Mr Duick, Deputy Secretary to Mr Smith.
He said that it appeared from Mr Porter’s evidence that when he attended the Widgery Tribunal, he was led into a room containing between four and six people, including Lord Widgery, who led him to believe that it would be better if his tapes were not made available to the public. Mr Porter was told that he could be charged with spying, carrying a penalty of up to 20-years imprisonment.
Mr Macdonald said that if either Mr Smith or Mr Duick were in the room and if they were party to the attempt to suppress evidence about the tape recordings, then it raised the likelihood of the fact that they could be party to the suppression of army photographic evidence. He said that there was some suggestion that army photographs and cine film could have been concealed from the Widgery Tribunal, raising concerns as to the conduct of the Secretariat of the Widgery Tribunal.
Mr Macdonald argued that, before the BSI could determine the truth of what happened on Bloody Sunday, it needed to be confident that it was in possession of all the evidence available, and whether people may have suppressed or attempted to suppress evidence or intimidated a witness.
His line of questioning was seeking to establish whether any witness, such as Mr Smith or Mr Duick, who might be called to give evidence before the BSI, was engaged in evidence suppression or witness intimidation. If witnesses before the BSI have previously been engaged in such activities, there is the possibility that they might act in a similar way with regard to the BSI.
Mr Macdonald’s questions to Mr Porter concerning the Widgery Tribunal outlined above were allowed.
7.3 questions on behalf of the soldiers
7.3.1 Soldiers coming over wall of Presbyterian Church
Mr Glasgow was surprised at the fact that Mr Porter claimed to have seen a lot of soldiers coming over the wall by the Presbyterian Church. Mr Porter said that he had both seen a number of soldiers coming over the wall and heard on the radio transmissions that Support Company was advancing from the Presbyterian Church into William Street.
A tape was played of an interview given by Mr Porter to Channel 4 in which he described 100 soldiers coming over that wall. Mr Porter admitted that he had used poetic licence in describing the number of soldiers who came over the wall, but that this was to a certain extent immaterial: 100 soldiers from Bravo 5 came into the area, whether it was over the wall, over the roof, or down the street.
7.3.2 Eyewitness account and deductions made from recordings
Mr Glasgow asked Mr Porter whether he was able, with a delay of 30 years, to distinguish between what he had actually seen on the day and what he had deduced from the tapes, especially since he had written in his statement to the BSI that he was with his tape recorder for the full five hours during which he was taping communications.
Mr Porter explained that what he meant by this was that the recorder was under his control at all times, even though he himself made a number of trips out of his shop to take photographs or to assess the situation. He confirmed that his evidence was based both on what he had seen and what he had deduced from the tapes.
7.3.3 Rioting on William Street
Mr Porter confirmed that he had looked out of his window and had seen the street clear of rioters when he heard the hesitant army transmission saying that there was still a hooligan element still present in the street.
7.3.4 BID 150 encryption unit
Mr Porter said that there was no secure unit in operation on Bloody Sunday. He said that he had spoken to army officers who had been in Derry at the time of Bloody Sunday who had confirmed to him that the BID 150 unit was not in operation on Bloody Sunday. He said that he had not included this in his statement to the BSI as his statement contained only facts, not second hand information.
He explained that shortly after he had attended the Widgery Inquiry, he was stopped by an army patrol in William Street. He was photographed and his photograph, with the caption ‘unsympathetic’, was posted in a montage of wanted people supplied to all army checkpoints in Northern Ireland. This led to him being arrested at every checkpoint he went through, and held at Fort George, with whomever was in the car with him at the time, for up to five hours. His house was also regularly searched by armed soldiers who went through all his personal affairs.
This continued without respite over a period of five years, from 1972 to 1977. During that period, he became friendly with a number of the officers and would often offer them a drink when they arrived at his house to search it, and would sit and talk to them. He said that Bloody Sunday often cropped up as a topic of conversation.
During one such conversation, he was told that the BID 150 was an enormous piece of equipment and a heavy consumer of current. It was in the radio car in Waterloo Place but ran down the car battery so that the radio car, and the unit, were out of commission when the troops entered the Bogside.
7.3.5 Graffiti on shutter
There was some confusion as to whether Neil McKenna or Billy Gorman was with Mr Porter and his employee, Joseph Barnett, when he took the photograph of the graffiti on the shutter. Mr Porter could not recall whether both men were present or just one of them.
7.3.6 Copies of tape recordings made
Mr Porter told the Inquiry that he had sent a copy of the tapes to RTE, who had transcribed the tapes for their own purposes.
7.3.7 Photograph of Mrs McCartney's house
Mr Porter was further shown that the picture he claimed to be that of Mrs McCartney at the window of her flat did not correspond with the description of the window provided by Mrs McCartney’s son, William McCartney.
7.4 further questions on behalf of the tribunal
7.4.1 Photograph of Mrs McCartney's house
Despite the evidence to the contrary, Mr Porter was adamant that the photograph he took was of Mrs McCartney at the window of her house.
7.4.2 Statement given to Widgery Tribunal
Mr Porter gave a statement to the Widgery Tribunal on the 14th March 1972 when he attended the Inquiry, which he signed it in the presence of Mr McKenna, another witness and the gentleman taking the statement. He was then brought into a room where he was questioned about the tapes.
7.4.3 Test of knowledge of aerial transmitters
Mr Porter clarified for the Tribunal what had happened when the squaddie, carrying the backpack with the radio antenna, was introduced into the room where he was being questioned about his tapes. He said that he was asked to identify the frequency of the squaddie’s equipment by looking at the length of the aerial. He guessed the frequency correctly and explained the simple formula he used to the people in the room.
8.
STEPHEN PEAK’S EVIDENCE
Mr Peak was a student at the LSE (London School of Economics) at the time of Bloody Sunday. As he was particularly interested in housing issues, he was invited to attend the march by a representative of the Creggan Tenants Association. He attended the march with four other students from the LSE. On their return to England, they produced a leaflet documenting their experiences and eyewitness accounts of what had happened on the day.
8.1
QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE TRIBUNAL
8.1.1
Doctored rubber bullet
Mr Peak took a close-up photograph of a doctored rubber bullet which he was shown by a man on William Street. The man told him that a razor blade had been inserted into the hole, although there was nothing in it when Mr Peak saw it. He was sure that the bullet was fired that day, as there were a number of bullets lying on the ground around.
8.1.2
Gas
Ms McGahey questioned him about his statement suggesting that the crowd fired two gas canisters at the army. Mr Peak explained that he meant that the crowd had thrown back at the army the gas canisters that had been fired at them. Mr Peak remembered the air being thick with gas and being shown how to use vinegar in a handkerchief to help him breathe.
8.1.3
Army sniper / Gunman
Mr Peak heard the first shots when he was at Free Derry Corner, listening to Bernadette Devlin. He and his co-student, Ms Harrison, started to make their way towards William Street which is where they had left the three other students they had travelled with.
As they sheltered at the rear of buildings on the West side of Abbey Street, they were fired at by a man whom Mr Peak believed to be a soldier. He identified the gun shot as coming from a short magazine Lee Enfield rifle and explained to the Inquiry that his knowledge of the sound and sight of fire arms stemmed from the fact that he used to work very close to an army firing range. He was sure that it was a live round due to its sound and the impact it made on the wall between him and Ms Harrison.
Mr Peak told the Inquiry that he was convinced that the man was a soldier and not a civilian sniper, positioned in the building due to the clear view down Rossville Street which the location provided. Mr Peak had seen him from the waist up and he had been wearing a dark green or brown military jacket. It was Mr Peak’s belief that the soldier knew he and Ms Harrison were not Irish by their clothing and hairstyles and therefore deliberately shot to miss.
In response to Ms McGahey’s question as to whether the soldier could have had any reason to fire at them, he responded that there was no telling why people do what they do. He elaborated by saying that everyone was aware of type of person recruited into the Paras and the fact that they loved to shoot. He reiterated his belief that if the soldier had wanted to kill them he could have done so.
8.1.4
Leaflet produced for LSE students
Mr Peak told the Inquiry that the leaflet was co-written by five people with the intention of informing students of the gravity of the situation in Derry. It was divided into two sections: what the students saw themselves and ‘eye-witness accounts’ from other people.
Mr Peak was no longer entirely sure which events of the first section he had reported and which ones had been written by his co-authors and had no specific recollection about a lot of the information contained within it. He also said that they had incorporated some newspaper accounts into their leaflet. In particular, he believed that the mention of a ‘probable IRA man’ walking through Meenan Park would have been taken from a newspaper. The ‘eye-witness’ account section was formed from conversations they had had with people in the Creggan during the night of Bloody Sunday.
8.2
QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE SOLDIERS
8.2.1
Army sniper / Gunman
Mr Glasgow told Mr Peak that one of the soldiers had submitted evidence to the effect that he had shot a gunman in a building near that identified by Mr Peak. Mr Peak responded that he was sure he was not mistaken as to the building in which he saw the army sniper and further reiterated his belief that the armed man in question was a soldier in uniform.
Mr Peak could not explain why he had not included this experience in the leaflet.
8.2.2
Doctored bullet
Mr Peak’s statement to the Inquiry states that the bullet was split and that a razor blade had been inserted into it, whereas his notation on the back of the photograph of the bullet reads that ‘nail or glass could be inserted into it’. Mr Peak said that he had been told on the day that a razor blade had been inserted into the bullet in question. The notation was intended to state that anything could potentially be inserted into such a split.
Mr Peak did not agree that he had been selected from the crowd as a gullible student and had been shown the bullet so that he could bring a wild story about a doctored bullet back to London. He said the person who showed him the bullet was waving it around and he happened to have a camera so took a picture of it.
8.2.3
Leaflet produced for LSE students
Mr Peak explained to the Tribunal that, in the ‘eye-witness’ section of the leaflet, they had merely reported what they had been told by people. They did not seek to put a value judgment on the different accounts or to analyse whether they were true or not.
8.2.4
Child casualty
Mr Peak could not remember being given the account about a three-year old child who had suffocated from CS gas which appeared in the leaflet, nor did he remember Bernadette Devlin saying at a rally the following weekend in London that the body of an eight-year old child had been taken out of the Bogside.
8.3
FURTHER QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE TRIBUNAL
8.3.1
Notations on photographs
Mr Peak told the Tribunal that it was his recollection that he wrote the notations on the back of the photographs around the 20th anniversary of Bloody Sunday.
9.
DR McCABE’S EVIDENCE
Dr McCabe attended to some of the wounded on Bloody Sunday.
9.1 QUESTIONS OF BEHALF OF THE TRIBUNAL
9.1.1 Arrival at the scene of the events
Mr McCabe was on a house call when his wife called him and told him that there had been people shot on the march. He drove to St Columb’s Wells where he parked, having been told by people sheltering in McKeown’s Lane and in the Wells that there were casualties near the Rossville Flats and that shots were being fired from the Walls.
He suggested going towards the flats with a white flag but was told that he would be shot if he attempted it. He therefore used the phone in a nearby house to dial 999 and asked Superintendent McCullagh for safe conduct to the scene. Mr McCullagh called him back seven minutes later to confirm that he could proceed to the flats via a specified route.
9.1.2 Rossville Flats
When he arrived at the flats, the shooting had stopped, although he saw two paratroopers in the car park and a number of army vehicles to the north of the flats. He met Fr Irwin who told him that most of the killed or injured had been removed, so he took a man who had been wounded by a rubber bullet back to his surgery in the Creggan.
Dr McCabe had no recollection of treating a man in the flats suffering from a wound inflicted by a CS gas canister. However, he said that he might well have done.
9.1.3 Altnagelvin
At Altnagelvin hospital, Dr McCabe spoke to John Hume, Ivan Cooper and Mr O’Kane, Gerry McKinney’s brother-in-law, before going to the morgue.
9.1.4 Morgue
Dr McCabe entered the morgue where he saw eight bodies. The Saracen vehicle that had been parked outside Casualty backed up to the door of the morgue and Father Irwin identified it as the army vehicle he had been refused access to in order to administer the Last Rites to the injured and dead.
As the body of John Young had a bulge on the right-hand side of the chest, Dr McCabe insisted that his jacket be opened to reveal what was causing the bulge. All that was discovered were two rubber bullets. He said that the mortuary assistant had said they were binoculars, thereby making insinuations about John Young’s conduct, and Dr McCabe wanted to find out the truth.
He was never told why a number of the bodies had been left in the Saracen instead of being moved into the mortuary.
9.1.5 Experience of gun shot wounds
Dr McCabe said that, over the years, he had occasion to treat people with gunshot wounds and bomb wounds. He categorically denied having treated anyone with a gunshot wound on Bloody Sunday or in the immediate aftermath of the day. He further told the Inquiry that he heard nothing on the grapevine to the effect that anybody was treated for gunshot wounds or was killed, aside from those taken to Altnagelvin.
9.2 questions on behalf of the soldiers
9.2.1 Knights of Malta First Aid posts
Dr McCabe did not visit any of the First Aid posts on Bloody Sunday, although he had visited such posts on previous occasions. He recalled there having been a post in a shed on waste ground near Rossville Street which he visited approximately five times during demonstrations occurring either before or after Bloody Sunday. He only treated riot injuries on such occasions, not gunshot wounds or bomb wounds of any description.
Counsel also related an incident when he was involved in treating a police officer by the name of Barr in St Mary’s school. Dr McCabe said that he did not recall that the school was a First Aid post.
9.2.2 St Columb’s Wells
Dr McCabe was told of the evidence of Mr Coyle who said that he had seen Dr McCabe attending to an injured man in the area of St Columb’s Wells. Dr McCabe stated categorically that that did not happen.
9.2.3 Secret casualties
Dr McCabe had never heard from any other doctor that they had treated anybody who had not gone to hospital for gunshot wounds.
9.2.4 Medical records
Dr McCabe told Counsel that he did not make a note of the name and address of the man he took to his surgery in the Creggan to treat for injuries caused by a plastic bullet. As he had not performed any operative manoeuvre on the man, he had not felt the necessity to do so. He added that, after what he had seen in the flats, he would have been in no fit state to think of taking notes. He never subsequently learnt the man’s name.
10. hugh deenan’s evidence
Mr Deenan was a corporal in the Order of the Knights of Malta on Bloody Sunday.
10.1 questions on behalf of the tribunal
10.1.1 Statements
Mr Deenan had been shown a statement he had made shortly after Bloody Sunday containing more information than his statement for the Inquiry. Mr Deenan said he stood by his earlier statement and his memory would have been a lot fresher at that time.
10.1.2 Portakabin near St Mary’s School in the Creggan
Mr Deenan said that the location of the First Aid posts would not necessarily be pre-arranged before a march. He was in charge of the Knights of Malta’s only ambulance on Bloody Sunday and had parked it outside a portakabin near St Mary’s school in the Creggan which he recalled was sometimes used by the Creggan defence group.
His decided to station himself at the portakabin due to the fact that it had a phone where he could be contacted were he needed. He informed Captain Leo Day of this decision and gave him the phone number of the shed. When he arrived he went inside to ask the five people who were inside if they could run out and tell him if there were any messages for him. He recognised Robert Canning and Martin McGuinness.
He did not notice any of the men leave from the time he arrived, which was after 1pm, to the time he left the area.
10.1.2 Michael Quinn
The first casualty that he treated that day was a young man who had been shot through the cheek. He applied a sterile dressing to the wound and took the man, whom he later found out to be Michael Quinn, directly to Altnagelvin Hospital.
10.1.3 Vinny Coyle’s house
On his return from the hospital, he ended up at Vinny Coyle’s house where there were a number of people injured. He had not met Mr Coyle before that day: he had never heard that it might have been a ‘safe house' and said that it had not, to his knowledge, been used as a First Aid post prior to Bloody Sunday.
Mr Deenan described the scene in the house as frantic as he and a fellow Knight of Malta, Attracta Bradley, tried to treat the injured. ‘Red’ Doherty was the only person in the house with a gunshot wound.
10.1.4 ‘Red’ Doherty
‘Red’ Doherty was a young man in his twenties, with red hair. Mr Deenan did not know his real name, but knew that his father was a bookie whose nickname was ‘Bojum’ and that the family lived around Wellington Street or Nelson Street.
‘Red’ had a gunshot wound to his left leg and Mr Deenan tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade him to go to hospital.
Mr Deenan saw ‘Red’ on one occasion some time ago in Derry and had not seen him since.
10.1.5 Other gunshot casualties
Mr Deenan’s contemporaneous statement made reference to another young man with a gunshot wound to the left shoulder who was taken to a house in the Creggan. However, Mr Deenan could no longer recall that incident.
10.2 questions on behalf of the soldiers
10.2.1 Portakabin near St Mary’s School in the Creggan
Mr Deenan parked the ambulance alongside the portakabin, which was a structure of about 10 of 15 feet long, belonging to the contractor in charge of building the community centre.
He said that he remembered seeing Martin McGuinness as he was already well known in the area by that time. However, Mr Deenan further stated that he only found out at a later date that Martin McGuinness was a member of a paramilitary organisation. On Bloody Sunday, he believed he was part of the Creggan defence group.
Mr Deenan said that he did not see Martin McGuinness leave the portakabin when he was stationed in his ambulance outside, although he added that he would not have had a clear view of the door of the portakabin from where he was located.
He further told the Inquiry that the second man he had recognised in the portakabin, Robert Canning, had since died. He could categorically state that the latter was not a member of a paramilitary organisation.
10.2.2 Gagga-Wagga
Mr Clarke asked Mr Deenan whether he remembered a local character in the Bogside known as Gagga-Wagga. Mr Deenan confirmed that he did, but that the Knights of Malta had never had to deal with him drunk as, although he was an alcoholic, his sisters kept him clean and tidy and he was not out wandering the streets at night.
He did not see him on Bloody Sunday and could not remember people saying that he had been shot or wounded. He told the Inquiry that his real name was in fact Eddie McLaughlin and that he had since died.
10.2.3 ‘Red’ Doherty
Mr Deenan said it was not usual practice to make any record of somebody who refused to go to hospital, although they may have noted down that they treated somebody who refused to go to hospital.
Mr Deenan could not explain why ‘Red’ Doherty was not included in the list of the injured on Bloody Sunday, but confirmed that his injury was a serious gunshot wound.
10.2.4 Order of Malta First Aid posts
Mr Deenan reiterated that First Aid posts were typically set up on the spur of the moment in the vicinity to where somebody was hurt. People heard on the day that First Aiders were situated in places such as Vinny Coyle’s and the Shields’ houses and therefore brought casualties to these addresses on the day.
He did not recall any doctors being at the First Aid post set in St Mary’s School, nor how many other Knights of Malta were present. This post was set up in a room in the school late in the night of Bloody Sunday. He did not recall any casualties being brought to the post during the night of Bloody Sunday, although he recalled making a house call to the home of Barry Liddy.
11.
PAT CASHMAN’S EVIDENCE
Mr Cashman was assigned as photographer to the Irish Press to cover the civil rights march in Derry. He came to Derry a few days before Bloody Sunday with his colleague Coleman Doyle to do some background research into the march.
11.1 QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE TRIBUNAL
11.1.1 British Army press briefing and warning from army officer
Mr Cashman told the Inquiry that he had attended many British Army press briefings prior to Bloody Sunday and had become friendly with many of the officers. At the press briefing dealing with the Bloody Sunday march he was advised privately by a British Army officer not to walk in front of the parade on Sunday. He had never received such advice prior to this incident.
11.1.2 Barrier 14 / Water canon sprayed at media
He recalled gas being used by the army but did not see gas being thrown from the crowd. He, and fellow members of the press, were sprayed with dyed water by the army water cannon. He felt that this was a deliberate action on the part of the army to put the press cameras out of action.
Mr Cashman and Mr Doyle moved away from the barrier to clean their cameras. This is where he heard baton rounds being fired from near the Rossville Flats area.
11.1.3 Rubber bullet wound
Mr Cashman had run onto the waste ground to the east of the Rossville Flats from William Street when he was confronted by a British soldier, wearing a helmet and a visor. He told the Inquiry that the British soldier took deliberate aim at him and shot him in the right arm with a rubber bullet. He had both his arms in the air at the time, with his camera in his right hand, and was shouting ‘Press’.
Mr Cashman returned to Melvin Hotel to take the swelling down in his right arm.
11.1.4 Photographs taken
By the time Mr Cashman returned to the march, most of the shooting was over. He took pictures of some of the dead bodies and a photograph of a person holding some spent live ammunition. He could not explain to the Inquiry why the person holding the bullet had decided to cover his face.
Mr Cashman had no recollection of having taken pictures of injured people prior to his being shot by the rubber bullet although he did remember taking pictures of arrestees leaning against a wall. These photographs have been submitted to the Inquiry.
11.2 QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE FAMILIES AND WOUNDED
11.2.1 Barrier 14 / Water canon sprayed at media
Mr Cashman told the Inquiry that, in the heat of the moment, he and his colleagues had ignored the advice of the British Army officer and had walked at the front of the march, getting as close to the barrier as possible. He said that, at the barrier, the media was set apart from the rioters and that the water canon was deliberately aimed at the distinct group of press representatives.
11.2.2 Rubber bullet wound
Mr Cashman demonstrated to the Inquiry how he was standing when fired upon by a soldier. He said that he could not use his hand for 20 minutes due to the numb sensation caused by the rubber bullet.
11.3 QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE SOLDIERS
11.3.1 British Army press briefing and warning from army officer
Mr Cashman’s recollection was that more than one British Army press officer spoke at the briefing concerning the forthcoming march on Bloody Sunday. He understood at the meeting that the army would be erecting a barrier on William Street to stop the march proceeding to the Guildhall, although he did not believe that the press was given this information as a direction on where they should go to take their pictures.
He was given the advice to stay away from the front of the march on the evening of Saturday 29th January, as people were milling around after the formal briefing. He took the advice very seriously at the time and informed his colleague Coleman Doyle and the other members of the media what he had been told. However, in the heat of the moment he did not follow the advice given and walked in front of the march to Barrier 14.
11.3.2 Barrier 14 / Water canon sprayed at media
Mr Cashman was one of the first people to arrive at the barrier. He recalled there being shouting and jostling, but did not see stones thrown at the army. He agreed that if there had been objects thrown at the soldiers, he would have deemed it a photo-worthy moment. However, he did not see this happening and therefore took no photograph.
Within a matter of minutes of the crowd arriving at the barrier, the army used the water canon. He described how they sprayed from one side of the road into the centre, and then deliberately took aim at the press on the right hand side. He did not believe the media had been accidentally caught in the sweep of the canon.
11.3.3 Rubber bullet wound
Mr Cashman agreed with Counsel’s suggestion that when the soldier who shot him turned round, all he would have seen was somebody running in his direction. He said that the soldier aimed at his body from a distance of 30 or 40 feet and felt that it was luck that caused the bullet to strike his arm as opposed to his torso. He did not believe that the soldier was trying to aim at his camera.
11.3.4 Photographs taken
Mr Cashman developed his film and sent the actual pictures by wire photograph to the newspaper. He told the Inquiry that he was no longer in possession of those photographs, since, as a staff photographer at the time of Bloody Sunday, he was required to give all his pictures and negatives to the newspaper for filing. He went on to say that the filing system at the newspaper was not very organised and that he did not believe that the Tribunal was in possession of all of the photographs he took on the day.
12.
CHRISTOPHER JAMES DOHERTY’S
EVIDENCE
Mr Doherty was 24 at the time of Bloody Sunday. He had attended a number of civil rights marches, beginning with the Duke Street March in 1968.
12.1 QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE TRIBUNAL
12.1.1 Experience of previous civil rights marches
Mr Doherty said that the marches he had attended had all been good-natured, although there was sometimes some stone throwing which he did not participate in. He had never seen anything other than stones being thrown at the army and had never witnessed any shooting near such marches.
12.1.2 William Street
Mr Doherty was towards the end of the march when he arrived at the waste ground near the old Castle Laundry on William Street and saw a handful of people throwing stones from William Street in the direction of the waste ground and the sorting office. The bulk of the march had gone by, and there were approximately 20 to 30 people, including the few stone-throwers, milling about.
Mr Doherty recalls hearing one shot fired, although he agreed there may have been more than one. He looked around and saw a man who had been shot being supported by some others. He did not recall seeing the man prior to his being shot. Mr Doherty threw a stone towards the waste ground in anger.
12.1.3 Rubble barricade
Mr Doherty made his way towards Free Derry Corner via Rossville Street. He was approximately 10 to 15 feet south of the rubble barricade when he heard heavy shooting and dropped to the ground for a couple of seconds.
During a lull in the shooting, he ran towards the gable end of Glenfada Park North. When he looked back he saw Mr Nash lying on his back, and another two bodies lying about 10 feet away from him closer to Block 1 of the Rossville Flats. He went to make his way towards Mr Nash who looked like he had been injured, but Mr Nash indicated to him to stay back.
Mr Doherty went to get Fr Bradley who was attending to somebody who had been shot in Glenfada Park North and led him towards the rubble barricade so that he could administer the Last Rites to the injured.
He saw one man trying to crawl on his back from the barricade towards Block 1 of the Rossville flats. The man managed to reach the door of Block 1. He did not see the man bleeding but assumed he had been shot as he had difficulty moving. He saw bullets ricocheting off the ground around the man but could not recall a bullet specifically hitting him.
12.1.4 Statement taken in 1972
Mr Doherty was shown the transcript of an interview he gave shortly after Bloody Sunday, believed to have been taken by Kathleen Keville. Mr Doherty had no recollection of giving the statement but recognised his voice on the tape from which the transcript was made.
12.2 QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE FAMILIES AND WOUNDED
12.2.1 Arrest and detention at Fort George
Mr Doherty was at the gable end of Glenfada Park North when he heard people shouting ‘get out’. He tried to run towards Free Derry Corner, but heard a lot of shooting coming from the direction of Rossville Street so he dropped to the ground. He told the Inquiry that it was his belief he was going to die. The next thing he remembered was a soldier approaching him and arresting him. He had not been aware of soldiers in Glenfada Park North and confirmed that he was doing nothing at the time to warrant his arrest. He was then taken to Fort George.
12.3 QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE SOLDIERS
12.3.1 Arrest and detention at Fort George
Mr Doherty confirmed that he had done nothing in Glenfada Park to warrant his arrest, although he had thrown a stone in William Street earlier in the afternoon out of anger at seeing the man shot near him. He recalled a rubber bullet being fired as he was being walked to a wall by the soldier who arrested him. He was put in a lorry with a number of people including a young lady who had a verbal altercation with the soldiers.
At Fort George, arrestees had to ‘run the gauntlet’ between two rows of soldiers. Mr Glasgow suggested that however unpleasant or unlawful the incident, all that the soldiers were doing was forcing people from the lorry into the compound, using a lot of force, but no serious violence. Mr Doherty agreed that he did not experience any serious violence and that he did not see anybody tortured on that day and said that one soldier had thrown him a packet of cigarettes to share with his fellow detainees.
13.
JULIEN DALY’S EVIDENCE
13.1 QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE TRIBUNAL
13.1.1 Barrier 14
Mr Daly joined the march at Southway and walked to Barrier 14. He saw an army vehicle drive up to the barrier: it had a water canon on the turret of the car and, to the right of the canon, there were four metal tubes splayed out from which CS gas was being pumped. He had no recollection of gas coming from under an army vehicle from a gas canister that might have been thrown by the crowd.
13.1.2 Rossville Street
Mr Daly met his brothers at the junction of Rossville Street and William Street, who told him that somebody had been shot. He looked at his watch as his brothers moved on and the time displayed was 4:07.
Mr Daly was standing on Rossville Street opposite Kells Walk when he saw two APCs (army personnel carriers) moving towards the junction of Rossville Street and William Street. He did not know where they had come from. Again, he looked at his watch and noted the time as 4:29. Both vehicles stopped in the waste ground near Eden Place.
He shouted to the small number of people in the area that they should stand their ground. It was his intention to take on the army with his fists if necessary. He saw a soldier jump out of the lead vehicle and, immediately afterwards, described seeing bullets ‘pinging’ up from the ground two feet to his right. It was his belief that the bullets were being fired across Rossville Street from Eden Place or Pilot Row. He said that it was clear that they were live rounds by the way they hit the ground, dislodging dust and mortar, and explained that he had been witnesses situations in the past when the army had fired live rounds and knew what a bullet looked like when it struck concrete or a roadway.
Mr Daly assumed that the bullets had been aimed at him as they hit the ground so close to where he was standing. Other than a few people around him, there was nothing else in the area to aim at: nobody had a weapon of any kind and nobody was acting menacingly towards the army. Nobody had responded to his call to stand their ground and, when the shots rang out, everybody ran for cover.
13.1.3 Glenfada Park North
Mr Daly ran down Kells Walk to Glenfada Park North, hugging the walls as he ran. He saw Jim Wray, whom he knew from work, running in the same direction. Mr Wray appeared to be on his own although there were other people in the vicinity. He later discovered that Jim Wray’s grandmother lived in Glenfada Park and believed he was trying to get there. He did not recall seeing anybody injured and saw no civilians with weapons. There were approximately 12 to 20 people in total in the car park who were running or sheltering.
Mr Daly ran to Abbey Park and heard a group of very loud shots coming from the courtyard in Glenfada Park North which he had just left. He could not recall looking back into the courtyard or seeing any soldiers.
After Bloody Sunday, Mr Daly returned to Glenfada Park North and saw a bullet hole in the wall next to a doorway. The hole appeared to have been made recently.
13.1.4 Soldiers on the roof of the Stardust Ballroom
As Mr Daly and a group of around seven people were running towards Abbey Park he turned and saw soldiers on the roof of the Stardust. He recognised them as such by the fact that they were wearing army camouflage uniforms. One of the soldiers aimed his rifle and shot in the direction of Mr Daly: he saw the muzzle of the soldier’s gun jerk up, heard one single high velocity shot and at the same time saw a man beside him, aged about 30, with fair hair, begin to fall. He did not know whether the man had been shot or whether he stumbled, but he fell near the steps leading up to Abbey Park.
13.1.5 Sound of machine gun fire
Mr Daly ran to the end of the road between Abbey Park and Glenfada Park South where he sheltered behind a kerb. During that time, he heard bursts of gunfire coming from his left and from behind him.
In his 1972 statement, he also mentioned hearing a heavy machine-gun fire 10 or 12 rounds. Mr Daly no longer believed that he heard the sound of a machine gun: a few days after Bloody Sunday, he heard a reporter from the BBC saying that he thought he had heard a machine gun, but had subsequently identified the sound as a helicopter banking. Mr Daly had identified the sound on the television with what he had heard himself and was now of the belief that he had in fact heard a helicopter as opposed to a machine gun.
He told the Inquiry that he had never heard machine gun fire previously in Derry and did not see a civilian with a gun on Bloody Sunday.
13.1.6 Shooting from the Walls
Mr Daly was running across Fahan Street West when a shot hit the ground three inches from his right foot. He said that, from the way the shot hit the road behind his front foot and the way the dust blew up, he knew that the shot had come from the Walls. He was sure that he was not mistaken and had a clear picture of the dust blowing away from the direction of the Walls.
13.1.7 Hospitals across the border
Mr Daly reached Lisfannon Park where he saw a young man staggering towards him, being supported by people who were helping him. The young man appeared to have been shot in the face. Mr Daly went over to offer his assistance. There was some discussion about the need to get the young man to hospital, and one of those present suggested taking him to Letterkenny Hospital by car. Mr Daly did not see a car take him away.
Mr Daly told the Inquiry that, before Bloody Sunday, he had heard of people with gun shot wounds not being taken to Altnagelvin Hospital for fear of being stopped by the army en route. He had no specific knowledge of this ever having occurred but said that he had heard gossip about it.
He had not heard of anyone being sent to Letterkenny Hospital on Bloody Sunday.
13.2 questions on behalf of the families
13.2.1 1972 statement
Mr Daly told the Inquiry that when he made his 1972 statement, it was his belief that it was just a preliminary statement: statements were being taken quickly and it was very busy. All he did was to give a brief idea of his experience, believing that he would later back it up with a fuller statement. However, his statement made for the Inquiry was the only subsequent statement he made.
This explained the gaps in his 1972 statement, in particular his omission of the events in Glenfada Park and his seeing Jim Wray.
13.2.2 Michael Kelly
Mr Daly had no recollection of seeing Michael Kelly being carried through Glenfada Park North.
13.3 questions on behalf of the soldiers
13.3.1 Sound of machine gun fire
Mr Clarke asked Mr Daly how, given his personal experience of and visible interest in gunshots, he could have mistaken the sound of a helicopter for that of heavy machine gun fire. Mr Daly responded that he had identified the sound when watching the subsequent BBC television report about the helicopter.
Mr Daly said that he had never heard machine-gun fire in Derry on previous occasions and was not aware that the Provisional IRA was in possession of a Thompson machine-gun at that time. He denied that he had changed his story about the machine-gun to protect the IRA.
13.3.2 Soldiers on the roof of the Stardust Ballroom
Mr Daly said that he had clearly seen two uniformed soldiers on top of the Stardust building. They had been visible to him from the waist up. He was sure that they were indeed soldiers, but was bemused at the time by their location, as the building was on the Bogside side of the march.
13.4 further questions on behalf of the tribunal
13.4.1 Soldiers on the roof of the Stardust Ballroom
Mr Daly was shown an aerial photograph and asked to identify where exactly he saw the soldiers. It transpired that they were in fact on the flat roof of the Credit Union building, next to the Stardust, as opposed to on the roof of the Stardust itself.
13.4.2 Times on watch
Lord Saville asked Mr Daly about the timings of 4:07 pm and 4:29 pm he had given in his statement which do not correspond with photographic evidence or with evidence given by other witnesses. Mr Daly said he was sure that those were the times on his watch when he looked at it, but could not confirm the accuracy of his watch.
14.
NOEL MILLAR’S EVIDENCE
Mr Millar was 15 years old on Bloody Sunday.
14.1 QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE TRIBUNAL
14.1.1 Barrier 14
Mr Millar was at Barrier 14 when the rioting was going on, during which time he saw soldiers fire rubber bullets and CS gas.
14.1.2 Waste ground between Eden Place and Pilot Row
When the army vehicles came through Barrier 14, Mr Millar ran down Chamberlain Street and through the alleyway that led to the waste ground. As he reached Pilot Row, he heard 200 rifle shots but did not see any soldiers in the vicinity. He did not think that the echoes of the shots on the buildings in the area could have given him the impression of hearing more shots than were actually fired, but agreed that he could in fact have overestimated the number of shots fired.
14.1.3 Barney McGuigan
Mr Millar ran to the Rossville Flats and took shelter by the telephone box. He described seeing a man he now knows to have been Barney McGuigan staggering and then falling to the ground. He realised that he was shot. In response to questioning about what Mr McGuigan was doing before he was shot, he said he saw him running in the direction of Fahan Street East. However, Mr Millar also said that he had not seen him before he was shot.
Mr Millar assumed that Barney McGuigan must have been shot from Glenfada Park because his eyelid and eyelash became stuck on the gable end wall of Block 2 of the flats.
14.1.4 Glenfada Park
As Mr Millar was sheltering by the telephone box, he saw 10 soldiers, some of whom were running across the gap between Glenfada Park North and South and some of whom were standing in the gap facing towards the flats. He told the Inquiry that the soldiers, wearing uniforms and helmets, were shouting and were holding their rifles at chest level. He did not recall seeing any of the soldiers actually firing their weapons.
14.1.5 Bodies
As he walked home, Mr Millar saw a number of dead bodies, three of which were in the locations where Hugh Gilmore, Barney McGuigan and Gerard Doherty fell. He also saw the body of a young man, lying on its front on the opposite side of Rossville Street, near Glenfada Park South. He had not seen the body before crossing the road.
He believed he saw people tending to another body on the same side of Rossville Street near a parked ambulance. Having seen a picture of Michael Bradley being carried to an ambulance, Mr Millar said that it looked like the second body he had seen.
He also recalled seeing a body lying on the steps between Glenfada Park and Abbey Park, although he had not remembered this in his statement. Indeed, in his statement to the Inquiry, Mr Millar only recalled seeing the body of Barney McGuigan that day.
14.2 questions on behalf of the families and wounded
14.2.1 Barney McGuigan
Mr Millar was lying on the ground by the telephone box in his effort to take cover. Mr Mansfield suggested to Mr Millar that he could have been mistaken in his testimony to the Inquiry when he stated that he had seen Barney McGuigan running before he was shot. Indeed, in his statement, Mr Millar had said that he had not seen Mr McGuigan prior to his being shot. However, Mr Millar was clear that he now remembered him running.
14.3 Questions on behalf of soldiers
14.3.1 Waste ground between Eden Place and Pilot Row
Mr Millar saw army vehicles come down Rossville Street across the waste ground. He did not see them stop as he continued to run. He heard a lot of live fire at that time, but heard no rubber bullets.
15. CHARLIE LAMBERTON’S EVIDENCE
15.1 QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE INQUIRY
15.1.1 Soldiers on the roofs of buildings
As Mr Lamberton came down William Street, he saw soldiers on the flat roof of a building near the Presbyterian Church: four or five of them were standing with their rifles in the air and a further three or four were lying down with their rifles aimed at the crowd on William Street.
He also saw soldiers on the roof of the postal sorting office.
15.1.2 William Street
Mr Lamberton said that he was in the middle of the march as it arrived on William Street. He saw approximately 30 or 40 youths run onto the waste ground in front of the Presbyterian Church and throw stones at the soldiers. He remembered thinking that the stone throwing was futile as the soldiers were out of range.
He heard four or five shots ring out, fired by the soldiers on the flat roof of the building near the church. About two minutes later, he moved onto the waste ground, where he heard people saying that ‘Bubbles’ was shot in the leg and saw a group of seven or eight people carrying him towards the Shields’ house.
At this stage, Mr Lamberton had heard no rubber bullets and had heard nothing that sounded like an explosion.
15.1.3 Barrier 14
After the shots rang out, the stewards were telling people to keep calm and to proceed to Free Derry Corner. However, Mr Lamberton made his way towards Barrier 14 and stopped at the junction of William Street and Chamberlain Street from where he could see 90 per cent of the barrier. He described a lot of people coming away from the barrier and thought they must have been apprehensive at the prospect of a riot.
By the time he got to the junction of William Street and Chamberlain Street, a riot had started and he could see the water canon spraying the crowd. He was surprised to see the soldiers wearing combat gear as opposed to riot gear. He got closer to the barrier and saw rubber bullets being fired. He saw CS gas, but did not actually see the army firing a CS gas canister.
At this stage, there were over 100 people at the top of Chamberlain Street, most of whom were rioting. He did not join in the riot and ran with the crowd as the barriers were opened and people started shouting that the army was coming in.
15.1.4 Rossville Flats car park
Mr Lamberton saw a three or four Saracens enter the area, followed by a few soldiers on foot. He therefore moved into the area of the Rossville Flats car park. He saw a 30-year old man being thrown forwards by a Saracen entering the car park. He was sure that he had seen a man and not Alanna Burke, who was hit by a Saracen in the same location that day.
At this stage, he had not heard the sound of rubber bullets or explosions, or anything to suggest that the soldiers were being fired upon.
15.1.5 Rubble Barricade
Mr Lamberton looked saw a group of up to 40 people standing south of the rubble barricade, some of whom were his friends. A number of people had stones in their hands and appeared to be waiting to take on the soldiers. Mr Lamberton recognised a man called Samuel Friel from a photograph of the barricade shown to him by Counsel. He told the Inquiry that the latter was now deceased. He also recognised Michael Kelly.
As he walked towards the barricade, he saw two Saracens and six to eight soldiers running down Rossville Street from the direction of William Street.
The crowd at the barricade had begun chanting ‘Hey, hey, IRA’ but he had no recollection of people going north of the barricade towards the soldiers. Another volley of five or six live shots rang out and everybody dived for cover.
15.1.6 Michael Kelly
Mr Lamberton saw Michael Kelly fall about 30 yards north of him, closer to the rubble barricade, but did not realise he had been hit. He was lying on the ground, bringing his knees up to his stomach. Mr Lamberton then saw a group of people around Michael Kelly, trying to help him, and they managed to drag him into the shelter of the gable end of Glenfada Park North during a lull in the shooting.
As the shots rang out again, Mr Lamberton made his way over towards Glenfada Park where he saw a small bullet wound in Michael Kelly’s stomach.
15.1.7 Glenfada Park
At this stage, he could see people coming into Glenfada Park from Columbcille Court and from Rossville Street. There was continuous shooting from the Rossville Street area and people were shouting that the army was coming in further.
He decided to go to his aunt’s house in Abbey Park so he ran across the car park and through the gap between Glenfada Park North and South. This was full of people who were running in the same direction. He saw no civilian with a weapon of any kind and heard no explosions.
As he ran through the alleyway, he looked back and saw a soldier with a gas mask, armed with an SLR (self-loading rifle) at the northeastern entrance to Glenfada Park. As he was half way through the gap, he heard more shots which were a lot closer to those he had heard on Rossville Street. He assumed that they had been fired by the soldier he had just seen.
15.1.8 Abbey Park
Mr Lamberton reached his aunt’s house in Abbey Park. His aunt tried to persuade him to remain there, but he left shortly afterwards and started walking back to Glenfada Park North. He saw two bodies lying on the ground which he later found out to have been those of Gerard McKinney and Gerard Donaghy. He had a recollection of diving to the ground at this stage, and believed that the people tending to the two wounded must have come under fire.
16.
CHARLES McGUIGAN’S
EVIDENCE
Charles McGuigan was 16 on Bloody Sunday. His father, Barney, was shot and killed on the day. He had been forbidden from taking part in the march but had gone down with his friend, Oliver Redman, to watch it go by.
16.1 QUESTIONS ON BEHALF OF THE TRIBUNAL
16.1.1 Waste ground
Charles McGuigan was on the waste ground between Eden Place and Pilot Row when he heard people shouting that the army was coming. There was pandemonium and panic as people started running as fast as they could away from William Street. Mr McGuigan ran to the nearest safe area that he could see which was the alleyway between Glenfada Park North and Columbcille Court. He became separated from his friend at this stage.
16.1.2 Mr Quinn
The Inquiry received a statement from a Mr Quinn who said he had met Mr McGuigan who had told him he had been forbidden by his father from going on the march. Mr McGuigan has no recollection of meeting Mr Quinn.
16.1.3 Kells Walk
Mr McGuigan reached the two brick walls that jut out from Kells Walk where he met a young boy called Pearse of approximately the same age as him. At this stage, Mr McGuigan was not aware of any army presence or of the sound of rubber bullets. They both edged their way along the alleyway towards Rossville Street to see what was going on. They reached a spot that was almost level with the end of the pram ramp that leads into Glenfada Park North.
Mr McGuigan looked north towards Kells Walk and saw four soldiers behind the two brick walls jutting out from Kells Walk. Three of the soldiers were crouching, and all of them had rifles which they were aiming up Rossville Street towards Free Derry Corner. He assumed that they had arrived on foot, as he saw no army vehicle in the vicinity. Mr McGuigan told the Inquiry that, at that time, there were no soldiers moving towards him and none on the waste ground where he had been earlier. He did not have a view of the rubble barricade.
As he edged out to see what was happening, one of the soldiers behind the brick walls fired a shot. There were others in the alleyway at the time, but Charles and Pearse were the only ones who were in the soldiers’ line of sight. Pearse clutched his eye where he had been hit in the face by a lump of brickwork that had flown out of the wall where the bullet had struck.
They both made a run for it and saw nobody with a weapon or anything that could have resembled a weapon.
16.1.4 Shooting from the city Walls
As they arrived at the end of the alleyway between Abbey Park and Glenfada Park, they heard looked towards Joseph Place and heard between six and eight single rifle shots being fired, causing dust to rise where the bullets hit the ground on Fahan Street West.
There was nobody in the area where the shots were hitting, and it was Mr McGuigan’s belief that they were being fired to prevent people from leaving the area. The shots could only have been coming from the Walls, as the spot where they hit was too far around the corner into Fahan Street to allow for the possibility of them having been fired from Rossville Street.
16.1.5 Gerry McKinney
Mr McGuigan took shelter in a house in Lisfannon Park until things died down. He met up with his friend Oliver Redman again and they made their way back towards Glenfada Park. He saw a crowd of 30 to 40 people gathered round a body at the western corner of the buildings. The person seemed to be alive and appeared to be wearing a white shirt and black jacket. He subsequently learnt that the person was almost certainly Gerry McKinney.
16.2 questions on behalf of the families and wounded
16.2.1 Rubble barricade
As he crossed from the waste ground to the alleyway leading to Kells Walk, Mr McGuigan could see the rubble barricade to his left. He said that there was nobody at the barricade throwing petrol bombs, acid bombs or any other kind of missile and nobody with a handgun. Mr McGuigan reiterated that he never saw any civilian with any weapon on Bloody Sunday. He also confirmed that there were no missiles being thrown from the barricade when the shot was fired, causing Pearse to be hit in the face by flying brick parts.
16.2.2 Barney McGuigan
Charles McGuigan at no stage crossed over to the place where his father had been killed and was nowhere near the scene at any time that day.
16.2.3 Appeal to soldiers
Mr McGuigan said that his family had never sought revenge for his father’s murder. They merely wanted to understand why it was felt necessary to kill him, who gave the orders to do it and why it was subsequently covered up. He said that his family still had faith in the Bloody Sunday Inquiry to uncover the truth behind his father’s death and to provide some form of closure on the topic.
Following the Tribunal’s ruling on venue, he appealed to the soldiers to come to Derry to give their evidence. He said that, of the 3,000 soldiers in Derry on Bloody Sunday, the majority had no case to answer before the Inquiry, as they had done nothing wrong. He further addressed the minority of soldiers who had opened fire, including the soldier who killed his father, saying that, even after 30 years, it was not too late to tell the truth.
Timetable of proceedings
Monday 21st: paragraphs 1 – 5
Tuesday 22nd: paragraphs 6 - 7
Wednesday 23rd: paragraphs 8 - 12
Thursday 24th: paragraphs 13 - 16
For Peace Justice & Human Rights
